On the third Saturday in March, the day before Helen’s memorial service, Aunt Sadie picked up the prep cooks—Thomas and Giselle—while Mr. Walters stayed back at her apartment ensuring mise en place. This, according to Giselle, meant everything in its place.

“French chefs insist on having all the ingredients prepared before cooking begins,” she told them. Pausing in the hall outside Aunt Sadie’s apartment, Giselle began to snap her fingers. “Does Mr. Walters have…Is that salsa music he’s playing, Sadie?”

“Apparently, it is…” Aunt Sadie replied, glancing over her shoulder at Mr. Sampson’s apartment door before adding quietly, “Without regard for the neighbors.”

The music spilled out of the apartment door as they opened it, greeting them noisily. Hurrying the children inside, Aunt Sadie struggled to pull off her boots. “Jason, turn it down! Coats over here,” she instructed Thomas and Giselle. “Shoes on the plastic mat.”

They could hear Mr. Walters in the kitchenette, singing to the music as water splashed into the sink.

“¡Hola, hola, bienvenidos a mi casa!” He bowed to Aunt Sadie. “Well…your casa,” he said. “And you must be Giselle.”

“Hi, Mr. Walters. Do you dance salsa?” Giselle placed one hand on her stomach and waved the other in the air, dancing her imaginary partner to the other side of the kitchen.

“I do,” he said.

“What happened here?” Aunt Sadie gazed at her kitchenette, where the countertops were filled with bottles and cans Thomas had never seen before—not even in a grocery store.

“You can’t cook on an empty stomach, so I made us a Korean hot pot.”

Using her remote to turn down the music, Aunt Sadie surveyed the mess around them. “I thought…” was all she could manage. “What happened to ‘everything in its place’?”

“A little mess is the sign of an accomplished cook, Sadie. Everything will be in its place by the time we leave. Now…” He gestured toward the stove. “A good restaurant staff takes time for a family meal. So. I’ve got buckwheat noodles here, a little mandu for—”

“Man what?” Giselle wanted to know.

“They’re stuffed dumplings. You’ll love them. I’m guessing you know your way around a pair of chopsticks, Giselle?”

Mr. Walters put a white towel over his arm and laid a pair of chopsticks on them.

Giselle nodded, took a pair, and clicked them together. “They’re pretty. I’ve never seen metal ones. Can I try?” she asked, motioning in the direction of a bubbling pot on the stove.

“The noodles aren’t quite done yet, which gives us time for—” Mr. Walters broke off, grabbing the remote and raising the volume on the music. “A brief interlude,” he said, sliding across the kitchen floor and singing in Spanish to the music before shouting: “It’s fusion night at the Torinis’!”

“It will be night if we don’t step it up here.” Aunt Sadie was not pleased.

Dancing his way back to the pot, Mr. Walters said: “A watched pot doesn’t simmer, Sadie.”

“But it is simmering.”

“And the timer is on.” Mr. Walters took hold of Aunt Sadie’s hands and tried to get her to dance with him, but she wasn’t having it. Instead, she tore some sheets from the paper towel roll and began wiping the counter.

Everyone got quiet then and watched the pot simmer. Soon they were sitting at the table, their chopsticks in hand, looking down at the noodles and dumplings. Rolling an impressive ball of noodles around his chopsticks, Mr. Walters popped them into his mouth.

Thomas had no idea what he said next. Maybe that the noodles were delicious?

When Aunt Sadie used her napkin to wipe up the broth that dripped from Mr. Walters’s noodles, he grabbed her hand again. “You must try this, Miss Torini, or you are missing out. Here.” Before she could object, Mr. Walters had twirled another clump of noodles onto his chopsticks and sent them, dripping, over to Aunt Sadie’s mouth.

The look on her face made Thomas think that Mr. Walters was on the verge of joining the ranks of Mr. Montgomery, her boss. Mr. Walters must have seen the look, too, because he said, “You could try being a bit more adventurous, Sadie.”

Aunt Sadie’s mouth stayed closed; the noodles dangled, dripping more broth onto the table. “I am trying,” she said as she left the kitchen and went into her bedroom.

Mr. Walters sighed and dropped the noodles back into his bowl. “Eat up, everyone. Then we’ll get this cleaned up so we can start cooking for tomorrow.”

After he’d put most of his exotic bottles back into a box he’d brought with him, Mr. Walters wiped down the counters and left to find Aunt Sadie.

“They’re fighting,” Giselle said after she’d ventured down the hall to listen at the bedroom door. “I’m guessing we have a Pisces and Virgo here.”

When they returned, Aunt Sadie seemed calmer. She opened a bag she’d brought out with her and began handing out aprons. “I snagged these at Value Village,” she told them.

Thomas took his but didn’t put it on. “I’ll wear my old one,” he said.

“Your old one is too small, Thomas,” Aunt Sadie said. “I gave it back to your dad. See? I have a new one, too.”

All of a sudden, there was Dave again, scaling the sides of Thomas’s stomach. Where was his old apron? Would his father give it to Goodwill? Helen had sewn that apron for Thomas. At his request, she’d sewn a special loop on the front—to hold his wooden spoon. That was before, of course. Before the baby. Before the medicine bottles and the rooms with drawn curtains and the leaking tears.

Sometimes it was hard to remember before Baby Sadie; sometimes it was even hard to remember before Helen leaving. The old apron had connected Thomas and his mother—what would connect them now? Would new things keep being added over the old things so that someday he wouldn’t remember anything about her at all?

Of course, no one else thought about this; they were tying on their new aprons. Giselle had chosen a green one covered in chili peppers.

“Thomas,” Mr. Walters said, breaking into his thoughts. “Since you’re now so familiar with the operation of the Revolutionnaire, I suggest that you be chief food processor.” Mr. Walters handed Sadie a knife he’d pulled from his box. “This is my chef’s knife, Sadie. I’m trusting you with its care for the cucumber slices. And, Giselle. Hmmm…let’s see…”

Mr. Walters took Giselle’s hand and twirled her. Then, putting his other hand around her waist, he began dancing with her in the kitchen. “Queen of salsa,” Mr. Walters announced, twirling her again and dipping her back so that her hair skimmed the floor.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Aunt Sadie asked Giselle.

“My mom and I took lessons,” Giselle said. “Usually I lead.” Hugging Mr. Walters, she bestowed him with air kisses before whispering to Thomas, “It’s so nice to have a partner who can really dance—don’t tell my mom!”

Mr. Walters grabbed a scrap of paper from the counter and held it up. “Here’s the menu du jour,” he said. “We’re serving your mom’s favorite foods, Thomas, so I’ve got potatoes au gratin, cucumber sandwiches with watercress, and pecan Sadies.”

“Pecan Sadies? Did Helen invent those for you?” Giselle asked Aunt Sadie.

“They’re pecan sandies,” Aunt Sadie explained. “But Helen changed the name for me. She’s made them for us since we were…”

Thomas caught the mistake the same moment that Aunt Sadie did. She did not say Helen used to make them, but that she did make them, as if Helen would stop by in a little while and show them how to do it.

Aunt Sadie sat down in a kitchen chair, turning so she faced the cupboards.

Mr. Walters switched off the music and sat next to her. “I hate when that happens…You just got lost in the taste of those cookies, didn’t you?” he asked, putting his hand over hers.

“But Mrs. Sharp said the sense memories are the best,” Thomas said.

“When you’ve lost someone you love, Thomas, you understand that the best and the worst feelings can happen at the same time.”

“Did you lose someone you love, Mr. Walters?” Giselle asked. “Is that how you know?”

Mr. Walters nodded. He squeezed Aunt Sadie’s hand. “Do you mind if I tell them?”

Aunt Sadie shook her head, keeping her head down.

“I lost my brother,” Mr. Walters continued. “I was away at med school. He was still in high school. One Saturday night, he and his friends were horsing around in a pickup truck. His buddy didn’t know he was standing in the back and gunned the truck. My brother fell off the back and hit his head. And he died.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I know. But it happened and I can’t change it. What’s strange is that I feel like now I have to live life for both of us.”

“What happened to medical school?” Giselle asked Mr. Walters.

“I dropped out to walk the Camino de Santiago,” Mr. Walters said. “It’s a pilgrim’s walk in Spain. We were going to do it together when he graduated. I started walking and…I just haven’t stopped yet, I guess.”

Mr. Walters looked around, surprised. “How did we get on this subject?”

“I asked you,” Giselle said, giving Mr. Walters another hug. “In French, we say: Je vous adresse mes sinceres condoléances. It means, please accept my most sincere condolences. We had a whole session on expressions of sympathy in Saturday school.”

“It sounds better in French, but the hug feels good in any language, right, Sadie?”

“Right.” Aunt Sadie put her arms around Giselle putting her arms around Mr. Walters.

“Come here, Thomas. I could use a hug from you, too,” his aunt said.

“And then it’s time to start cooking,” Mr. Walters said.

While Giselle and Sadie cut cucumbers and thin slices of rye for the sandwiches, Mr. Walters showed Thomas how to cut the peeled potatoes to fit into the feed tube of the food processor.

“We need uniform slices,” Mr. Walters explained, “so the gratin cooks evenly. Thomas?” Mr. Walters leaned in so that only Thomas could hear what he was about to say. “That story you are making…with your mom in it. Sadie told me about it. Could you explain to me how you do that? I have nieces and nephews who will never know my brother unless—”

“What was his name?” Thomas asked.

“Andrew.”

“That’s a good name.”

“I know. I keep having the same dream every few months. Pretty much since he died. Andrew’s with our old retriever, Misty. My sister, Renee, insists that he was too young to remember when we had Misty—”

“It doesn’t matter what Renee thinks,” Thomas said. “It’s your dream.” Thomas put a piece of potato into the feed tube, pressed the food pusher against it, and pushed the button on the processor.

“They’re in the barn behind our house,” Mr. Walters continued when the machine had finished. “It’s an old barn. We didn’t use it, but…in my dream, they live there—Andrew and Misty. In the hayloft. It’s like a cave.”

Mr. Walters was seeing that hayloft now. Thomas could tell because, just like when Helen went somewhere far off in her mind, his eyes were directed at the cupboard over Thomas’s head.

“I go out there at night, climb into the hayloft, and shine my flashlight. There’s just this small entrance woven all around with hay. It’s like an animal’s nest. Andrew waves for me to come in, but something, maybe my weight, causes the whole thing to collapse.

“We all fall. It doesn’t hurt because there is hay all around. Sometimes I hear barking in the distance. Then that’s it. That’s when I wake up.”

“You should start the story there,” Thomas said quietly. “Maybe not when you wake up, but when Andrew does.”

“Really?”

“He fell, didn’t he? But instead of falling off the truck, this time he falls into the hay.” Unlatching the processor lid, Thomas scooped out perfectly uniform slices of potato. “Maybe he fell into a magic place in the astral plane. But it’s just a suggestion,” he remembered to add. “Only if it feels right to you.”

“Well,” Mr. Walters said, “Misty is definitely going to be with him in my story.”

Thomas nodded, thinking of his fox. “If you can’t stop thinking about her, Misty has to be there.”

“Thank you, Thomas. Can I show it to you? When I’ve got something down on paper?”

“Of course.”