She is like a rosebush in her long dress of bold pink and red flowers. She comes to my bedroom the morning of my wedding as I am dressing. From a worn, white pocketbook, she pulls crumpled dollar bills, scented with talcum powder, and covers my cupped hands with hers, veiny and wrinkled. “This is just from me for you,” she says. “From my weekly allowance.” The allowance from her second husband, who now must guide her everywhere because she gets confused. I enfold her, tears paint my cheeks, mascara stings my eyes. She still knows me, her only granddaughter.
Linda Dreeben is a retired lawyer living outside Washington, DC, and focusing on how not to write like a lawyer.