The oak side table next to Grandma’s chair was bare for the first time in my life.

The lace runner had gone with the box, along with the little brass tray and the dish that held her reading glasses.

I took the photo album off the bottom shelf and opened it on my knees to the page with the tape on the corner.

The photo was from my ninth birthday.

Grandma Ruth was holding both my hands in hers above the candles, and her mouth was open, frozen in the middle of a word she never got to finish.

She left four days after that picture was taken.