“You know what I remember, Gran? I don’t know where I was, but I was little enough to be under doorknobs, and I wanted to say a word so bad, and the word was ‘interesting.’ And I tried to say it, but it always came out ‘insterting.’ And that was my first big, big frustration.”

“You take things pretty hard,” her grandmother said. “I always tried to get you not to, but I don’t know, you can’t get children to be other than they are, and your nature is you take things rough. You work them over too much. Let things be, I always figure, but you always mull around and check everything out. Oh, you were a nosy little thing.”

“I like to hear stories about me,” Suzanne said. “It’s like I expect to hear some clue one day, like ‘Rosebud,’ where I’ll think, ‘That was the moment.’ See, I don’t really remember feeling like a child, or like I imagine children are supposed to feel—that kind of Yippee! thing like running down a green pasture or something. That’s why I love hearing stories about myself as a child, so it seems like maybe I didn’t just land here.”

“No, you didn’t land here,” her grandmother said. “You were a child. There’s plenty of children in the world that are serious children. You had to grow up fast because of the divorce. That was hard, but it happens to lots of people nowadays. Of course, it’s easier on children when it doesn’t, but there’s no use going over that. I don’t know, you did things children do. You wore big hats and put on your mother’s makeup and wore her big high heels. You directed little shows in the closet. You were a child, and you can still be a child if you want. If you want we can go down to the market and I can get you some baby food. You’re not missing that much.”

“I always feel like I’m missing something.”

“Well, you always did feel that way. You never could even nap. Never.”

“I’ve always had this sense of foreboding,” Suzanne explained, “that something could go wrong and . . .”

“And what? You think that if you could be there you could prevent it? A little person like yourself? If it’s gonna go wrong, it’ll do it all by itself.”

“I know, but I feel like if I were there, I might be able to make it go right.”