She grabbed both armrests and steadied herself.
The woman pointed at her, triumphant.
“See? See? She can move when she wants to.”
I stepped between them so fast I nearly knocked over a rack of reading glasses.
“Don’t touch her again.”
My voice came out so low and sharp that I didn’t recognize it.
The woman folded her arms across her raincoat.
“Then stop pretending she needs special treatment.”
My mother was eighty years old.
She had not walked in six years.
And we had come to Halbrook’s Department Store on a Saturday morning in October for one simple reason.
My daughter, Mia, was turning twelve the next weekend.
And her grandmother wanted to choose her birthday present herself.
That was all. That was the whole reason. A birthday present.
I’d already tried to steer her toward three different displays on the way in. The jewelry counter, which was close to the elevator. The toy section, which had wide aisles. A table of scented candles right by the front doors, so we’d have a short trip.
Each time, she’d said, “Rebecca. I can find my own way.”
And each time, I’d let go of the handles of her chair and walked beside her, and within two minutes my hands had drifted back to the handles again without my even noticing.
Now half the store seemed to be watching us.
A security guard was coming across the floor. Big man, gray at the temples, with a radio clipped to his shoulder.
“Ma’am,” he said to the woman in the raincoat. “Please lower your voice.”
“Ask her to stand up,” the woman demanded, pointing at Mom again. “Go on. Ask her. Then you’ll see.”
My hands were shaking.
Mom’s weren’t.
She set the blue scarf down on the counter. Then she slipped two fingers into the pocket of her cardigan. The gray one with wooden buttons that Mia called “Grandma’s cloud sweater.”
She pulled out a worn brown leather case.
“Perhaps,” she said quietly, “this will settle it.” 