Nora went. The crowd parted around her in that way crowds do when something is happening that they can sense but not name. She felt eyes on her. She heard, faintly, someone say Haverty and someone else say hush. Mrs. Pruitt lifted the dish towel off the lattice apple and looked at it for a long moment over the top of her glasses.
"Frank's pie," she said softly. "Your mother used to bring it to the Christmas party every year. Lattice top, with a little extra nutmeg, because Frank said cinnamon alone was for amateurs."
Nora's throat closed. She hadn't known that. She hadn't known that the extra nutmeg had a name, had a reason, had come from somewhere. She had just always done it, because her mother had always done it.
"You'll put it at the head of the table," said Mrs. Pruitt, handing the pie to Cal without looking at him, the way a surgeon hands back an instrument. "Where Walter used to sit. And you'll come into my kitchen, Nora Haverty, and you'll mash these potatoes, because Calvin mashes potatoes like he's angry at them."
"I do not," said Cal.
"Lumps," said Mrs. Pruitt darkly. "Like gravel."
*