She was crying now.
She said, in the way that she says things when she is feeling too much for her voice: you mean I’m actually going to see the ocean?
I said: yes.
She said: in my life?
I said: yes, Grandma. In your life.
She covered her mouth.
She looked at the folder.
She looked at me.
She said: oh, Callie.
She said my name the way she has said it my whole life, which is the specific way of someone for whom the name contains the whole person.
I said: we’re going in six weeks.
She said: I need to find my good blouse.
I laughed.
She laughed.
We drank our coffee and she asked me every question she had about Florida and I answered every one and some I looked up on my phone right there at the table and she watched the phone with the expression she used for technology, which was focused suspicion.
The six weeks leading up to the trip were their own thing.
She mentioned the trip to everyone.
The people at her church.
The women in her Wednesday afternoon card group.
The neighbor who brought her tomatoes from his garden in the summer.
She mentioned it to her doctor at her quarterly appointment and he said: Rose, that’s wonderful, and she said: my granddaughter is taking me to see the ocean.
She said it with the ownership of it.
My granddaughter is taking me.
Not: I am going to Florida.
My granddaughter is taking me.
I heard her say it through her open window when I came to pick her up one afternoon and I sat in my car for a moment because there was something in my chest that needed a moment.
She had a new blouse.
She had gone shopping with one of her church friends.
She showed it to me.
It was blue.
A light blue with small white flowers at the collar.
She said: I want to look right for the ocean.
I said: you look exactly right.
She said: you haven’t seen me in it yet.
I said: I know. But you will.
She held it up and looked at it and said: Edwin would have liked this one.
I said: yes.
She said: he always liked blue on me.
I said: he had good taste.
She said: yes.
She said it simply.
