PART 1
My daughter-in-law gave me a two-dollar scratch-off card for my seventy-third birthday and laughed as I scratched it. Ten months later, my own son put a glossy brochure in front of me for a senior living facility he and his wife had already chosen for me, as if my life were a piece of furniture they could toss out of the house when it got in the way.
The scratch-off had been the only gift I received that birthday. It still had the store price tag stuck to the back.
“Let’s see if you win enough for bus fare, Margaret,” Jessica joked.
Colin, my son, burst out laughing. My grandchildren laughed too—more because their parents did than because they understood the joke.
I was sitting in the kitchen of the home where we lived in Austin, Texas. I had baked the birthday cake myself. As Jessica cut a slice, commenting that the vanilla frosting was far too sweet, I ran my fingernail over the ticket’s silver coating.
