Mrs Gerard is a professional mother. She not only does three meals a day, she also does anything in between. That afternoon she made us grilled cheese sandwiches and fries in the microwave. She used two different kinds of cheese and she cut each sandwich in quarters and decorated it with a sprig of parsley.

“Wow,” I said, “this is just like eating in a diner.”

Ella choked back a giggle.

That was when I caught Mrs Gerard looking at me. I’d seen that look before. Kind of awe-struck but worried, as though she’d just realized I was related to Edward Scissorhands and couldn’t touch anything without cutting it into shreds.

When she saw that I was watching her with a contemplative look of my own, Mrs Gerard laughed. Hers is a laugh that makes me nervous. It doesn’t sound happy, like a laugh should; it sounds as though she couldn’t think of anything else to say or do.

“Surely you have grilled cheese sandwiches at home,” said Mrs Gerard. You could hear the rest of her sentence kind of dangling in the air: don’t you?

Mrs Gerard is always curious about what I do “at home”. You’d think she was taking a course in sociology and not advanced cooking.

I nodded. “Oh, sure, only they’re usually burnt because all we have is this sandwich toaster you put on the stove, and we never have parsley with them.” My mother’s idea of a garnish is a napkin.

“No microwave?” Mrs Gerard laughed again. “I thought everyone had a microwave these days.”

As far as I can tell, Mrs Gerard also thinks that everyone has a housekeeper, a gold American Express card, and limitless time to make sure there are no water marks on the glasses.

“We don’t.” I bit into my sandwich. It was delicious. “My mother doesn’t approve of them.”