I haven’t spoken to my mother since the elevator doors closed. She hasn’t attempted to call. I haven’t reached out either.
Last Saturday, Nonna rolled up to my apartment complex at ten in the morning. She ordered me to pack up Marigold, and she drove us directly to the upscale outdoor mall in Short Pump.
She bypassed the food court, marched straight past the clearance racks, and navigated us into the depths of a high-end department store’s children’s boutique.
Nonna thumbed through a rack of impossibly tiny garments until she found what she was looking for.
It was a magnificent, heavy wool coat. It was a vibrant, cardinal red, sized for a twelve-month-old, featuring thick wooden toggle buttons and a plush hood adorned with tiny bear ears.
“Nonna,” I laughed, wiping a bead of sweat from my forehead. “It is September. It’s eighty-five degrees outside.”
Nonna didn’t smile. She looked at me with the fierce, protective intensity of a wolf.
“Winter comes every single year, Jana,” she said softly. “That is the one thing in this life you can always count on. But you will never face the cold alone again.”
She unbuckled Marigold from the stroller, hoisted her into the air right there in the middle of the aisle, and wrestled her into the thick wool. She carefully fastened every wooden toggle.
The thick red sleeves swallowed Marigold’s hands. My daughter looked down at her new crimson armor, grabbed one of the wooden toggles with her hidden fingers, and attempted to eat it.
Nonna gently rotated the baby so she was facing the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the end of the aisle. The seventy-eight-year-old matriarch and the seven-month-old infant stared at their reflections together for a long, quiet moment.
Then, my grandmother turned, walked deliberately to the cash register, hoisted her massive black leather purse onto the glass counter, and unclasped it.
And this time, I stood back, smiled, and let her.
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