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34 grandma Janice H. Brazil The old woman face lined, hair thin and wispy, fingers knarled, bent by arthritis, back stooped ever so slightly, looks up from her plate and asks, Care for another piece of pie? Holding my stomach with my hands, I chuckle. You still make the best pies. She laughs and I see not a 95-year-old woman, but an image in an old photo. Wearing the gown she wore to a West Point military ball, a beautiful seventeen year old smiled into the camera, ready to drink in life. Can’t make good crust anymore though, she says, rubbing her crooked fingers together. What were your dreams then, Grandma? Dancing that night did you know you were holding a ghost whose memory would be captured in the name of another man’s son? Swirling, your cadet dies in France in a war to end all wars. Who could predict fifty years later you lose sustenance for living 35 another soldier in a country you know nothing about? Would that seventeen-year-old have danced long into the night if she had known war would be so jealous as to strike out twice against her? It’s been downhill ever since I turned 90. She laughs at her own joke. The image fades and the face of a frail old lady stares across the table at me. It is still beautiful. Life is good, Janice, she says and loses herself to memories for a moment. My voice cracking, I answer, Maybe one more small piece. ...

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