**A Leopard-Print Silk Blouse**
Saturday morning I woke up and the first thing I noticed was the smell of coffee from next door. Rosalind, my neighbor in unit 4, always brews the same blend with a pinch of cardamom. Through the thin walls of our old row house in Charleston's historic district, you hear everything — the woman upstairs dragging her chair across the floor, the building manager's TV blasting downstairs. It used to drive me crazy. Now? Now it's just my everyday soundtrack.
I'm seventy-three years old with an eleven-year-old cat named Otis. He's fat, lazy, and looks at me like I've lost my mind whenever I dance around the kitchen. And I do dance. Every single day. To the radio, to whatever's playing. Because I can. Because nobody walks in, asks if dinner's ready, sighs about me "acting up" again.
My daughter thinks something's wrong with me. Because a grandmother is supposed to sit at home, knit, and wait for the phone to ring. Meanwhile I bought myself a bright red lipstick last week at the drugstore on King Street, and I wear it every day, even just running out for two tomatoes at the corner market. You know, I used to hide my lipstick in my purse before I walked through my own front door. So my husband wouldn't give me that look. "Putting on lipstick again? For who?" For who. Funny. For myself, obviously. But back then I couldn't say that out loud.
My husband died eight years ago. My daughter — the one who lives out in Mount Pleasant now, in a new condo building with an elevator — called twice a day that first month, asking if I wanted to move in with her. "Mom, alone in that old house? You can't handle it." I only couldn't handle it at the start, when the front hall still smelled like his aftershave. The bottle sat there, cap off, half empty. I poured it out little by little over a month. Then I bought new curtains, rearranged the furniture, and for the first time in thirty years put a vase right in the middle of the living room table, just because I wanted to.
Today it was gray outside, drizzling. And something got into my head. I put on black slacks, a silk blouse in a leopard print I'd kept hanging in the closet since spring, and huge sunglasses. The ones my daughter gave me, "because Mom, at your age you need to protect your eyes." I protect them. Even when there's no sun. I walked out onto Meeting Street and felt people looking. A young couple passed by, and the girl turned, elbowed the guy next to her. I don't know what they thought. I don't care. I walked like I was on a runway, even though my hip ached. Let it ache. The ache is proof I'm alive.
I stopped into a coffee shop near the Old City Market, ordered a latte with hazelnut syrup and a cheese danish — came to nine dollars and change, but it tasted like pure luxury. I sat by the window, crossed my legs, and watched college kids jog down the sidewalk with thrift-store bags. I used to drag my daughter to those same secondhand shops. Now I just get to watch. I don't have to buy a thing.
At the table next to me sat a couple. Him, maybe pushing forty, with the look of a man who'd been through the wringer. Her — worn out, dark circles under her eyes, the kind of purse you carry to work, not for show. They ordered two black coffees, no pastries. They sat there in silence, each buried in a phone. I watched them and thought: God, how good it feels to be alone. Not because they're unhappy — I don't actually know that. I just know what it's like to sit across from someone with nothing left to say. Whole days went by like that. Evening, dinner, him reading the paper, me stirring my tea. The spoon clinking against the glass — that was our conversation.
On the way home I bought a bunch of yellow tulips. Nobody's going to buy me flowers, so what? I'll buy them myself. I set them in the vase in the middle of the room, right where the table used to be, the one we used to eat at together. Otis opened one eye, yawned. I sank into the armchair, kicked off my shoes, and looked at my feet. Blisters from the new shoes, the leather not broken in yet. Beautiful blisters. I checked my phone — a text from my daughter: "Mom, call me back." I wrote: "All's well. Bought myself some flowers." Nothing for a while. Then: "Why do you need flowers? You can't really afford that kind of thing."
Here we go again. Turning me into some old woman who doesn't understand a budget. And here I am with my own Social Security check, eighteen hundred and change every month, and my own bank account. I've managed it myself since the day of the funeral. I was always terrified I couldn't do it, because my husband handled everything at home — the electric bill, the gas, all that paperwork. And look at that, I manage it better than he ever did.
That evening she texted again. "Mom, I need to borrow some money. Mark lost his job, the car payment, you know how it is." Mark's her husband. Second one, if I'm counting right. They took out a loan on a new Honda after the old Buick died on them. And now they're sitting there, stuck. I'm supposed to be the standing emergency fund, is that it? She's sitting in that fancy new condo with the elevator she used to worry so much about me not having, and texting me that I "probably don't understand."
I'll write her something she'll understand, all right. Ever since she moved out, I've sent her three hundred dollars a month for the grandkids — for phone bills, for shoes. Not anymore. Not because she and the kids matter less to me. Because she stopped seeing a mother and started seeing a wallet. I just transferred that three hundred dollars to the local animal shelter here in Charleston. Before she could ask me again, before I could talk myself out of it. I'm sitting in my chair now, Otis purring on my lap, and the phone is buzzing furiously on the table.
I know she'll be shocked. I know she'll be furious. And I know tomorrow morning I'll wake up earlier than usual, brew coffee with cardamom like Rosalind does, put on my red lipstick, and walk out for fresh bagels. Alone. Free. Carrying a bag with the referral slip for my hip X-ray tucked inside, because I have to take care of myself too — just myself.
I'm not half of anything. I'm whole. Otis lifts his head, looks at me. Honestly, he's got the right idea. Enough with the big thoughts. Time to wash out my mug.
