During a visit to my parents’ house one weekend, I suddenly had an urge to make apple pie, and rushed to the Shop And Save in Cranberry to buy everything. My parents never went to the grocery store in their own town.

I carried a bag of apples and a carton of frozen pie crusts through the aisles, and heard the cries of a child in the next aisle. Make it stop, please, I thought, as I turned the corner.

“Apple pie?” I heard a familiar voice ask me as I scanned the shelves. “Because I’d like a slice of that. Oh, wait …”

“Jacob,” I said out loud, then turned around. Jacob, my closest friend while I was growing up, pushed a cart with a toddler strapped into the child seat, shrieking at the top of its lungs. The baby was clearly...

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