She confirms receipt of the care package, and assures me her chest feels much less congested already. And please, travel in throngs. I return my portable phone to its distant cradle, then visit my grandmother. Here in her kitchen, I'm glad she serves me a bowl of fresh chicken soup at the oak gate-leg table where we share secrets mostly, hold hands now and again. I ask if she can remember more old family recipes that will help a long-distance mother breathe easier.
Memories surge from the quilt of their past.
His college yearbook, balanced on its spine, splits open to his photo caption with lines about promise and charm. Once, in the Student Union, he sprinkled salt packets on her teased hair, then hand in hand they flew across Formica lagoons. Again and again, she squints at his caption, the way she does when reading the fine print in new car ads, but still finds no disclaimers. The recent snapshot, there, of their child is deceiving, too. You see only a toddler, his hands covered with ice cream and cake.