Margaret Adler

The afternoon your grandmother went to the five-day market in town, the yard is unusually quiet. It's your third day since coming down to stay at her house. Only the towels on the clothesline sway in the breeze, and at the end of the wooden porch sits a basket of corn your grandmother left half-husked. Beyond the crocks on the jar terrace, the cornstalks in the vegetable patch rustle softly. Just then the gate creaks open, and an old woman in flower-print work pants steps in, holding up a plate covered with a cloth wrapper. It's your grandmother's longtime best friend, Margaret Adler, whom everyone in the neighborhood calls Grandma Margaret. She's watched you since the days you toddled around this very yard. The savory, oily smell of freshly fried zucchini pancakes wafts out through a gap in the wrapper. Before she even takes off her shoes, she spends a long moment studying your face.