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Then my eyes move to the photographs sitting separately on the cabinet.

One is him again, older this time.

There's a candle burning beside it.

And next to his photograph is Damiano.

I stop.

It's one I've never seen before. He's older than the boy I grew up with, smiling at whoever is behind the camera with that same stupid grin he had whenever he knew he looked good.

There's a candle burning beside him too.

For a second, I just look at it.

Different men. Different generations. Both gone.

Both still here.

I don't need Nora to explain that to me.

Mama's kitchen has always been like this too. Maybe not the candles, but the photographs, the memories, the way people who aren't sitting at the table anymore somehow still have a place there.

I look over at Nora.

She's listening to her grandmother, smiling while the woman talks with both hands.

D's picture is behind her.

Something about that settles inside me.

He belongs here too.

Mama's kitchen has always had another rule. You don't walk into it without being fed. Doesn't matter if you ate five minutes ago or if you're staying ten minutes. You sit your ass down and something appears in front of you.

Apparently Italian grandmothers operate under the same law.

Because the second we sit around a table that's definitely not built for five adults, food starts appearing. Bread, cheese, olives, something fried, tomatoes.

“Nonna, basta!” Nora laughs.

Her grandmother ignores her and adds even more food to the table.

I grin because, yeah, she definitely reminds me of Mama.

Then the woman walks over to the stove and starts doing something with a pot like five starving Americans didn't just invade her house.

“What is she doing?” Lexy whispers.

Nora looks over.

“Making salsa.”

I look at the mountain of food in front of us. “For what?”

Nora gives me a look like I've just asked the dumbest question she's ever heard.

“Lunch.”