suitcase is there on the floor, her fancy coat and hat on the hook. Sheâs holding a prayer card.
âCome on in, angel,â she says. âJust saying a novena.â She looks at the clock. âSit down. Weâve got time for tea.â
There is always time for tea. Tea is my nanaâs answer to everything â a blizzard, a heat wave, the chicken pox, all ailments of the mind and body and heart.
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream â¦
â S HAKESPEARE
N ana and I sit at her small, round kitchen table, looking out the window at the lilac bushes, which have now lost all their sweet-smelling purple buds.
Nana looks worried, scared even, her fingers fidgeting around her teacup. I know sheâs afraid of flying. Sheâs never been on a plane before.
Nana rode a huge ocean liner across the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland all by herself when she was just sixteen, but ever since then her favorite vehicle is the city bus. Nana doesnât even like riding in my dadâs car. Sheâs always telling him to âslow down, Roe!â
And he does. My father listens when Nana talks. Itâs almost like heâs still a boy, not wanting to make his mommy mad. He loves her so much.
âDonât worry, Nana,â I say. âI read once that people are safer riding a jet plane than they are riding in a car in their own neighborhood.â
âOh, no,â Nana says, shaking her head vehemently, her lips pursed, like this is an absurd thing for me to say. âIâm not worried at all, dear.â She refills my cup and then hers.
I know sheâs faking. Thatâs the way Nana deals with things that trouble her. She makes believe they donât exist, or she says novenas.
Novenas are these really long prayers Catholics say. Nanaâs got a novena for everything â somebodyâs sick, somebodyâs dying, somebody lost their keys, somebody needs a wish granted.
I wonder what Nana wishes for? She never, ever says. We donât have those kinds of conversations. We talk about whether the tea is steeped enough, or does the soup needs salt, or if we think it will rain.
âWhen are you coming back?â I ask.
âBitsy wants me to stay until Labor Day, but I told her I need to be home by the third week in August.â Nana sets her cup down and winks at me.
Nana loves winking. She winks more than Santa Claus.
âWe have a date, donât we?â Nana says, walking to the wall calendar and flipping up the pages. âAugust twenty-first â Aislinn. Got it circled right here.â
âYes!â I say, smiling, relieved that she didnât forget. Nana and I have an annual date â the third Saturday of August. Itâs a tradition.
Ever since I started kindergarten, Nana and I take the bus uptown and we go to Cooperâs Shoe Store and Nana buys me whichever pair I choose â no matter the cost â and thatâs very generous of her because I know she isnât rich. Nana says shoes are a personâs most important apparel purchase. âYou can sew a patch on a pocket or let the hem out on a skirt, but a girl should start a new school year in shoes sheâs proud of.â
After we get the shoes (we never buy anything besides the shoes) we go to a restaurant for lunch â Fatoneâs or Manoryâs or the Puritan â and we get a booth and take our time looking over the menu and placing our orders (weâre never in a rush; itâs such a good feeling), and we generally order tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips and extra pickles and we always, always order pie for dessert, with tea, of course.
Sometimes when weâre having our annual back-to-school lunch, my new shoes in a box on the seat beside me, and lots of times when Iâm sitting here across the table from Nana, here in her kitchen, sometimes I think, Go ahead, A, do itâ¦. Ask Nana for help. Tell Nana how bad itâs getting. How scared