In a small, sunlit kitchen, there sat a simple wooden spoon on the counter. Its handle was worn smooth, and its bowl bore the faint scorch marks of too many close encounters with the bottom of a pot. To anyone else, it was just a spoon—ordinary, unremarkable, even a little bit shabby. But to Maria, it was the heart of her home.

She had received the spoon as a wedding gift decades ago, a part of a set that had once gleamed brightly in their newness. The other utensils had long since been replaced, lost to time or misplaced in moves, but this spoon had stayed. Maria often wondered why she had...