Alma had unlocked the secrets of the universe but wasn’t about to share them. As a consequence, she was as comfortable in her own crepey skin as a dewy, sun-kissed twenty-something. It followed that she would also take comfort in leaving on her nighties for most and sometimes all of her waking hours, except when trips to the grocery store or doctor’s office demanded a modicum of decency in clothing and deportment. So on this Sunday morning, dressed as usual, she stepped outside her front door with a cigarette burning in her left hand and a pair of shears in her right. Her gown—a shortie, as she called them—left nothing to the imagination. It had once been a calming shade of blue but over time had assumed a gray cast not unlike her own. The front neckline was decorated in vertical pintucks dotted with three plastic pearlescent buttons, each one sewn over a satin bow that now curled inward over the button. The gown was made in a lightweight cotton gauze, but age had reduced it to remnants. By some miracle the hemline had held on and was still decorated in a lacey trim that matched the neckline and the sleeveless arms. It could be 50° or 150°—Alma did not heed the thermometer when she plucked a nightie from her drawer each evening; she might slip on a cardigan if it was cold enough.

Now she gingerly navigated the three steps on her front porch in slippered feet, and tottered down the brick walkway until she reached a woody shrub at her mailbox, overflowing with fragrant peony blossoms. But at the precise moment she bent herself 90 degrees to inspect the massive blossoms (more accurately 45 degrees, as her standard posture gave her a head start at its 45-degree angle), at the moment her neighbors Joe and Lillian were backing their massive Cadillac down the adjacent driveway for church, the sun shone through Alma’s gown, revealing her full silhouette in all its octogenary glory. Joe grinned and Lillian screwed up her face disapprovingly, the portion of it Alma could see, at least, underneath black netting spilling from her felted hat. Alma stood upright, smoke swirling visibly from the long ash column on her cigarette, and smiled at them. As the car floated past her she hollered as loudly as her voice could manage, Pray for me! and then raised her middle finger at the lumbering sedan.