My mother was holding on to his outstretched arm with both hands, not in the least worried about the wait. They had sneaked off the minute I was gone. They’d have the whole morning and part of the afternoon to themselves. A generous person would not begrudge them that. A generous person would be grateful her mother had someone. Whereas a person who had been unfairly singled out by the universe might think a hole had opened up into the future, where everyone was going about their business. Might even be willing Robin’s good-natured self to go away and leave my mother to me, who had her first, who belonged to her completely, who needed her more.

My grandfather folded himself behind the wheel, chuckling about something or other. He’d insulted her coffee, but still Grandma was laughing and holding his cup aloft to prevent spillage, while behind their backs I could barely see my own hands, let alone the road or the cars, as we swung out into traffic, church-bound.

•  •  •

“Now, that’s what I call a church, Rose.” When I pointed to the steepled gray-stone on the corner, my grandmother’s arm came along with mine. We had been joined together for the walk down Tenth Street because she’s always loved linking arms, rubbing your back, resting her hand on your shoulder while she’s talking to you. When I got sick, she started doing it nonstop. According to Mom, this comes from losing her own mother when she was ten, but I like to think it’s me she wants to touch.

“No, that’s Catholic. Ours is over there,” said Grandma serenely. “First Congregational.” What we were looking at was a box of blue glass floating on a concrete pedestal. The square panes formed a blade at the corner, and the clouds captured on their surface collided with the real clouds at odd angles.

“Wow,” I said. “Very modern, Rose.” The building gave off a violet shimmer that made me feel observed, like those sunglasses where the person can see your eyes but you can’t see theirs.

“The church is in the two lower floors,” said Grandma. “The upper part is offices we rent out.”

“You rent them out?”

“The church rents them out. That’s how it survives in this day and age. We built the building with that in mind.”

“You built the building?”

She gave me one of her looks.

“So,” I said. “The church is concrete and the offices are colored glass? Isn’t that the wrong way around?”

“You’re a quick study.” She smiled. “Always were.”

“We used to look more Gothic,” Grandpa put in. He was ambling along unattached on my other side. “The first church had a bell tower.”

“When was that?”

“Eighteen sixty-eight.”

“So you never actually saw it?”