side pocket of her purse.
Beside something old and yellowed that I only caught a glimpse of.
“Thank you,” she told the agent.
Then she turned toward me.
“Grandma, that ticket cost me more than I want to think about.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Then why would you give it up?”
She reached for my hand.
Her fingers felt cold.
“I’d rather sit in the back.”
And that was all she would tell me.
—
I should explain why the ticket mattered so much.
My grandmother, Ruth Walsh, had just turned eighty.
She still lived alone in the small gray house in Dorchester where she had spent more than five decades.
She planted flowers every spring.
Did crossword puzzles in ink.
And every Sunday at exactly six in the evening, she called me to ask whether I was eating properly.
My name is Sam.
I was twenty-seven and working as a nurse
