Now, I live alone in a large house.

Before that, I had a dog named Tobias. He was half pit bull, and my neighbors thought he might be dangerous, but he was the sweetest dog, never bit anyone, not once, not ever. After I hurt my back and couldn't do the things I used to do, he was patient with me, walked right next to my cane, as if he could somehow catch me if I fell.

Before that, the hummingbirds would hover by my feeder every morning to drink the sugar water I'd prepared, and Tobias would watch them through the window, his excited tail thumping the wooden floor. I stood next to him and watched, too, amazed that such tiny birds could exist, that they could propel themselves so quickly with wings that blurred with motion. As we watched the hummingbirds, Tobias would press his warm and solid body into the side of my leg.

Before that, I chose Tobias from the animal shelter because he seemed dangerous, like the type of dog a woman living by herself should own.

Before that, I had a garden. It produced far more food than one person could consume, and I made weekly donations to the food bank during the summers. It was nice to talk to Donna and Pauline at the food bank on Wednesday afternoons when I made my donations. I should have been embarrassed when they sent that young reporter from the local paper to my house to interview me about the heirloom plants I grew from seeds, to write about me as if I were a great philanthropist because of my produce donations, but I was glad for the company for an hour, glad the young reporter seemed so interested in what I had grown.

Before that, Edward was still alive. He was a good husband, agreeable in every way. Maybe too agreeable. My daughter called him an enabler, said I always had to have my way in life because I was so used to getting my way, always, at home. "Grow a spine," she yelled at him the last time we saw her, before she shut the door on us forever.

Before that, I had a job. I worked for forty-five years for three different Fortune 500 companies. Articles were written about me, and the phrase "shattered glass ceilings" was used in every article. I was called brilliant and driven and cutthroat and tough and a visionary. I was all of those things.

Before that, my daughter told me she couldn't abide by my politics, that I lacked empathy and could never understand her and what she believed in. I laughed when she said that because I thought she was just a lost young person attempting to find her way in the world, trying out ridiculous, uncompensated activities—organic farming in Israel, learning to play the sitar in India, being a teacher's aide on a Lakota reservation—before settling on who she really was.

Before that, I had a little girl. I loved her, even though I did not have much time to spend with her. When I arrived home from work each night, I'd slip off my heels by the door and stand quietly for a few moments, feeling the coolness of the wooden floor on the soles of my feet through my stockings. I watched Edward and our daughter in the kitchen, sometimes putting together a puzzle at the table, sometimes playing a board game, sometimes washing dishes—him washing, her standing on a stool drying—after the dinner they'd eaten before I'd arrived home. I eavesdropped on their happy chatter, and often I felt like an interloper entering the kitchen and disrupting them.

Before that, I was in business school. I told myself I had to work twice as hard as my male classmates in order to gain the respect of my professors and peers. I wasn't in school to make friends; I was there to make something of myself. For a project in one of my classes, I had to study a local small business, evaluate their business plan. I chose the cobbler down the street from my apartment. Even back then, there was something old fashioned about the place, crammed with tools and the smell of leather, the cobbler hunched over his bench in the back, a lamp clipped to his table illuminating his work, glasses sliding down his nose. When I asked if I could study his business, the cobbler said, "You should talk to my son, Eddie. He's going to take over one day. He could use some advice from a smart girl like you." I bristled at being called a girl, but I stuck my hand out for a firm shake when Eddie, long-haired and in tight jeans, emerged from the back room.

Before that, I was a girl. This was before the car accident that killed my father, before my mother plunged into depression. I didn't know back then that we were just scraping by. Life, then, felt easy and carefree. My grandmother lived on a farm a few miles from our cramped apartment, and on weekends I stayed over and slept in a large bed in a sunny bedroom in the farmhouse. I slept happily with my arms and legs splayed, taking up as much room as I could. My grandmother taught me to garden, explained how to save seeds from year to year. She showed me how to take those seeds and plant them, water them, and tend the plants as they grew. All I knew when I was a girl was that I loved working in the garden with my grandmother. I did not understand then that she was teaching me to perform miracles when she showed me how to make so much from hardly anything at all.


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