“Grandma,” she said, “you look happy.”

“I am.”

“Then you should do it again.”

So I did.

I started with one afternoon a week and eventually added another.

It cost me nothing except time, and it returned something I hadn’t realized I missed: the feeling that I could contribute to the world for reasons entirely my own.

Evelyn and I did not always volunteer on the same days.

Once, when I arrived to find her absent, I was surprised by my own disappointment.