My Grandmother
Doesn’t notice when I walk into the room. She’s focusing her scrutiny on the lab technician. (He’s taking pictures of her, she’ll tell me later, and this, to her, is suspicious.) He says “You have a visitor.” She talks to him, in Armenian. “This is my daughter’s daughter.” Looking into her eyes, squinting and unsmiling, I feel as though I’ve betrayed her. We’ve all betrayed her. She’s helpless here. At her house, she’s the boss....