“Everything is fine,” Ida told Judy. “The Meals-On-Wheels girl is making me a blue dress for Thanksgiving. We’re going to have a picnic in the park.”

Thanksgiving was a perfect fall day, bright, cool, and windy. “Come look,” said the Meals-On-Wheels girl, opening up a white box on Ida’s bed. Heavenly blue—the dress was exactly that color, as if the Meals-On-Wheels girl had tucked and pleated several yards of October sky. It was lined with white like the throats of the morning glories, with a shiny silver band sewed into the insides of pleats and folds, so that silver flashed from hidden places. The Meals-On-Wheels girl held it up high and put it on over Ida’s head. “I made it like an eleven-o’clock morning glory.”

Ida could see that the fabric relaxed into graceful folds, like a morning glory right before noon, when it just begins to droop. “It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“You’re right about that. I worked my fingers to the bone on that thing.” The Meals-On-Wheels girl stood back, turned Ida around and around, then clapped her hands and laughed out loud. “Now come with me to Paradise,” she said.

It was nothing but Paradise Park, Ida knew that, just a grove of pine trees on the edge of downtown. But they went all the way along the azalea path to the Nat Williams Memorial Daffodil Garden in the middle of the park.

On the slate table the Meals-On-Wheels girl had spread Ida’s grandmother’s damask tablecloth with the embroidered crest and the ICW. The table was set with the panel Dresden china Ida hadn’t seen in years and the repoussé silver. There was the newly polished water pitcher, the wineglasses with the gold rims, and the silver epergne, with morning-glory leaves trailing along its branches.