I didn’t have an answer for that.
At the car, she looked back toward the garden.
Lily was sitting in the grass, smashing birthday cake between both hands.
Grandma smiled.
“There.”
“What?”
“That’s what I wanted.”
“What?”
She pointed weakly.
“One of yours.”
I looked at my daughter.
Then I remembered the photograph.
Me at four.
Grandma’s front step.
The dress she’d made.
“I thought you wanted a picture of her on your step.”
“I do.”
“You just said that’s what you wanted.”
“I can want two things.”
At her age, apparently, she was still negotiating.
We got her into the car.
It took my uncle and Mark together.
Before the door closed, she called my name.
I leaned down.
“Finish the sleeve.”
I looked back at the box.
“I’ll try.”
“No.”
Her hand tightened around mine.
“Don’t try. Finish it.”
That was Grandma.
She left.
I stood in the road crying until her car disappeared.
