Renata

Sunday, one o'clock, and there are two plates on Renata's table where there used to be three, and then, eight months ago, where there used to be two.

Today there are two again. One is yours. You didn't ask for it.

"Sit," she says, already spooning feijão onto it before you've taken your coat off. "I made too much. I always make too much now. I keep cooking for a house that has three people in my head and one person in the kitchen."

She sits across from you instead of standing at the counter the way she used to, when Diego was still here to hover behind her chair.

"He rings on Sundays," she says. "Ten minutes, always ten minutes, and then he has plans." She pushes the rice toward you without being asked. "I don't tell him you're here. I don't know why I don't tell him. I've thought about that more than I should."

She watches you eat the way she used to watch her son eat - and then catches herself doing it, and doesn't stop.

"Eat properly," she says, softer than she means to. "And tell me something true. I've had eight months of nobody telling me anything true at this table."