The Tattered Kimono by Caitlin Vincent

As I lay in the stark white hospital room, my mind raced as fast as the violent winds that danced across the cool, gray November sky as they wrapped themselves around the gnarled and tangled branches of the naked trees.  I was alone.  In my thin white hospital gown whose sole reference to femininity was a tiny blue floral print, I felt vulnerable and disarmingly unprepared for the immense challenge that awaited me.  

Beyond the edges of the sterile white walls of my room, I could hear footsteps and voices echoing off of the tiled corridor.  From my bed, I was able to observe an endless parade of activity in the noisy hall as doctors in white coats and nurses in brightly colored uniforms walked past in what seemed like methodical precision.  The long and endless space, with its precisely uniform rows of doors, reminded me of the vast and frightening hallway of the Marshall House Inn, one of Savannah’s former Civil War hospitals.  

I felt lost, inconsequential and uneasy in my tiny room which was just one of many behind the monumental brick walls of St. Joseph’s.  In an effort to quell my fears and distract myself, I turned my head to look out of the diminutive window.  Gazing at the late fall sky, I felt myself at once becoming both lost and guided by the strange power of my repetitive thoughts.  Suddenly, a gentle knock on the door brought me out of my trance as I heard a voice sweetly ask, “Cora, may I come in?”

“Yes, it’s fine, you can come in,” I replied.  I knew from the voice that it was Mary, the delivery nurse I had been assigned, who had come to check my progress.  Secretly, I was glad to see her as her visits, which occurred at half hour intervals, helped to break up the monotony of the military like march of doctors who preceded past my door.  But more importantly, Mary, besides my doctor, was proving to be the sole means of support I had to rely upon during the delivery of my first child.  Without the support of my own mother, who sat coldly in the waiting room feeling to ashamed to tend to her expectant daughter, Mary proved to be a beacon of kindness and compassion.  Her warm smile and reassuring pat on the hand helped to soothe my feelings of fear and anxiety, as I nervously anticipated the second stage of my labor.

After examining me and telling me that a few hours still remained in the first stage, she quietly left the room leaving me alone with my thoughts.  As I stared at the delicate floral pattern on my gown and counted each tiny flower with rhythmic precision, I found myself endlessly repeating the same phrase internally, of ‘I’ll be a good mother, I know I can do it’, that had been etched into my mind since the beginning of my pregnancy.  Every time I felt the icy waves of anxiety and panic beginning to wash over me, I would repeat those simple, humble words in my mind until the anxiety slowly began to melt away.  It was a vicious cycle, one that was relentless in its pursuit of causing me to experience periods of both self doubt and hatred.  My mind and body were exhausted from both the pregnancy and engaging in the ritualistic mental battle of words and thoughts which caused me to question the very morals that I held so dear.

My hands began to tremble from the anxiety and as I looked around the Spartan room for something to distract myself, I noticed a small wooden cross on the wall opposite my bed.  As I studied its beautiful simplicity, a thin stream of tears began to trickle down my cheek. Despite my doubts about faith and religion, I closed my eyes and prayed for some kind of salvation from the inner turmoil of my thoughts.  My eyes began to feel heavy and as I took a deep breath, I placed my hands on the round stomach that protruded before me, gently tracing the winding curves that sheltered my baby from the cruelty of the world.  

As I leaned back on my pillow, I thought of how it all began. I remembered that day at the Book Lady as if it were yesterday.  I had gone into the archaic bookshop to pick up some Fitzgerald novels for my great aunt to read.  It was late February and I had returned home for the weekend from the University of Georgia to visit her as she was not feeling well.  Unfortunately, my plan to surprise her with the books was stopped by my mother who told me that my aunt was too ill to have any visitors.  When I entered the store, my eyes immediately fell upon the most handsome man I had ever seen.  He was tall and strong and his thick wavy hair was an inky black.  I was so overcome by his good looks that I hesitated to even go up to the counter to ask for help but I did once I had summoned the courage.  He kindly led me to the Fitzgerald section and left me amongst the dusty shelf of novels.  

When I returned to the desk with my selections, he smiled shyly at me and asked if I was a fan of Fitzgerald.  I told him that I preferred the less flowery writing of Hemingway and that the novels were for my great aunt who rarely left her home due to a condition known as agoraphobia.  This piqued his interest as he told me that he was studying psychology at South University in Savannah.  As I paid, I was secretly hoping that he was interested in more than just my aunt’s agoraphobia.  I wanted him to be interested in me.  As I disappointedly turned towards the door to leave, he called out to me and motioned for me to come back to the counter.

“I feel so bad for not introducing myself,” he said.  While extending his had towards me, he told me his name was Gordon Brown.

“I’m Cora,” I shyly replied.

“Cora, he said, “I don’t want to seem too forward, but I’d love to ask you to meet me at the Bistro 45 lounge in the Marshall House Inn tonight.  They have a great jazz band that will be there too.  Besides, it’s my last chance to hear them before I leave next week for Germany.  I’m studying abroad there for a year.”

I was so stunned by his invitation that I hesitated for a moment.  After a brief silence, I told him that I couldn’t wait to meet him there.

In the hospital bed, as I probed my mind for the details of that night I eventually realized that I could only recall fragmented pieces of what had happened.  The memories that were the strongest were the most painful, as they left me with a longing to see him again.  I could still feel Gordon’s gentle touch, during our brief encounter, as he brushed a tendril of hair away from my face that fateful day.   I remembered how loved I had felt as he gently caressed my neck and kissed me softly.  His eyes were so reassuring and tranquil; their luscious hazel green color had reminded me of the foliage of centuries old trees that nearly swept the streets of Savannah with their majestically long branches. 

 That day was now nothing more than a memory as faded and tattered as the fragile lace that adorned the ancestral, Edwardian wedding dress that so many women in my family had worn.  I had hoped to carry on the tradition by wearing the dress on my wedding day.  I silently asked myself, “Why did I do this?  How could I have been so foolish?” This is not the way that I hoped it would be.  As the sky began to turn blue outside my window, my memory became a bit clearer and I could picture every detail of that beautiful spring morning.  The day that everything had changed.

My heart pounded as I walked along the stately tree lined street on that piercingly blue, balmy April morning; the fear that emanated from within me nearly forced me to stop, but I didn’t.  I felt as if I was cloaked in a veil of mystery, as I was carrying two secrets with me.  My ballet slipper clad feet, as they landed on the unevenly cobbled brick street, carried me past row upon row of aged brick, eighteenth century townhouses.  As I passed each one, I couldn’t help but wonder if their immaculately manicured appearances, with their boxwood topiaries and gleaming black front doors, would reveal the same kind of patrician harmony inside.  The warmth from the sun and the sweet smell of the fragile, pink dogwood blossoms helped to relax my nervously rigid body.  A beautifully melancholy canopy of Spanish moss, as delicate and fragile as a bridal veil, hung from the Live Oak trees above my head and helped to give me an enveloping sense of security that temporarily sheltered me from the storm that brewed within my soul.  I finally stopped at 129 Bull Street.  

There looming before me, with its’ faded grandeur, stood the massive clay brick townhouse.  The pitch black color of the wide wooden plank steps hinted at the darkness that lay inside and made it seem like an insurmountable task to climb them.  Somehow, deep within me, I found the courage and was soon standing in front of a pair of beautifully etched glass doors.  I could feel a tightening of my throat as I rang the doorbell.  A few tense minutes passed, but there before me stood my Great Aunt Lucinda in the doorframe.  

She was wearing her favorite richly embroidered silk kimono, that had become threadbare, and her charcoal gray hair was piled neatly on top of her head in a bun.  She smiled softly at me and as she bent forward to turn the crystal knob, I was shocked by the frailty in her hands.  Lucinda had just turned eighty-two in March and the hands of time were beginning to show their work, as the years had created an intricate web of delicate lines on her fair, ivory complexion.

“Cora,” she said reaching out to embrace me, “it’s so good to see you, honey.”

As I stood there, embracing her delicately frail body, a wave of fear washed over me.  In my mind, I pictured my mother and feared the day that the cruelty of age would begin to show on her beautiful, radiant face.

“I’ve missed you,” I said, as I turned my cheek towards her to give her a kiss, all the while smelling the intoxicatingly rich scent of her Guerlain perfume.

“Come and have some tea and cookies in the library,” she said.

I took her by the hand and helped lead her down the elegant, antiques lined foyer filled with the aristocratic trappings of her privileged childhood.  Lucinda had been a child of incredible wealth, born in 1925 just before the Great Depression, to one of Savannah’s oldest families.  Her grandfather had emigrated from England and started a brick manufacturing company along the shaded banks of the Savannah River.  As we walked towards the library, past original mahogany Sheraton console tables from the Seventeenth century and Louis XV armchairs, I quickly looked up and glimpsed at the wall of black and white family photographs that hung from the glazed walls.  

One photograph, in particular, always captured my attention. It was of a handsome man with thick wavy hair and smoldering dark eyes whose gaze seemed to follow you throughout the room.  The photograph was of my great grandfather, George, a man who I had never met.  George was Lucinda’s father.  As he was the oldest of his five siblings and the only boy among them, he took the company over after the death of his father.  George ran the company, Ogelthorpe’s Brick Manufacturing, for nearly forty years before selling out to a private investor for over nineteen million dollars.  

Next to the photograph of George, was a wedding picture of he and Anne both looking radiant with youth and love.  Anne had been a true Southern beauty and her Spanish lace veil was the perfect frame for her delicate features.  In 1910, George married Ann Greene, a daughter of a wealthy cotton merchant, in a Baptist ceremony at her family’s sweeping brick plantation.  George and Anne built a beautiful Queen Anne style brick townhouse at 129 Bull Street in which to raise their growing family.  Their union produced five children: Frederick, Beau, Annabelle, William and Lucinda.  Lucinda, being the youngest, was doted upon by her adoring parents the most and accompanied them on many antiques buying trips to Europe as a child.  

Despite having the ideal childhood filled with every advantage, Lucinda had difficulty finding her way once she approached adulthood.  Lucinda excelled at her studies but was unable to form any relationships while she was in high school.  These struggles only continued through her college years.  I, too, experienced these same social difficulties and they were one of the primary reasons behind my failure to succeed during my first year of college  My mother would often recount family tales of my great aunt’s strangeness and I knew that her intent was to strike a fear in me of the dangers of becoming “odd.”

Unfortunately for my mother, who was one of Savannah’s social swans and a permanent fixture at nearly every society event in town, her only child was starting to become a mirror image of her strange aunt.  I had never felt accepted in high school and always felt like I was on the outside looking in.  Although my mother desperately wanted me to belong and encouraged me to follow in her beauty pageant footsteps, the “happiest days of my life were spent winning titles” she often bemoaned, I had little interest.  Much to my mother’s chagrin, my true loves in life had little to do with winning titles and standing in front of a crowd with a face painted like a hauntingly perfect porcelain doll.

My interests in art, antiques and literature expanded my horizons and allowed me to step outside of my increasingly reclusive world, even if it was just for a few hours.  As a child, I had always been drawn to Lucinda’s peculiar qualities and had spent many a happy hour safe within the magical confines of her townhouse as she told me stories of her childhood trips to Europe and taught me about the fascinating characteristics of Impressionist art.  One of my fondest childhood memories was of Lucinda running her impossibly long, slender fingers through my golden hair and telling me what a special child I was.

We sought pleasure in each other’s company and loved being together.  When I’d return home from Lucinda’s, my mother would scold me and always responded with the same terse reply of, “How many times do I have to tell you not to go near that strange woman?”  As I grew older and continued my disobedient meetings with Lucinda, my mother eventually stopped warning me about spending time with her.  Instead, she tried to instill a fear in me of my great aunt by recounting tales of what had apparently gone wrong with her as she became a young woman.  

After we had been in the library chatting for quite awhile, Lucinda excused herself and went to the kitchen to get more macaroons.  As I looked at the grand marble fireplace surround, I noticed that Lucinda had casually leaned two of her etchings from her college days on the mantle in front of a trumeau mirror.  The etchings were of Greek vases and her fine execution of them revealed the great amount of talent that she had.  They made me think of my own artistic abilities and how the anxiety that I experienced at college had prevented me from showcasing my talents and accomplishing anything of significance.

Lucinda had reentered the library, her cream kimono flowing gracefully behind her, and she had replenished the sterling tray with more desserts.  As she sat down in a French armchair, she leaned forward and offered me a sugar cookie.  I took a bite from the sweet, paper thin cookie and we continued talking about the glorious arrival of spring.  As we talked about the blooming dogwoods and the delicate hyacinths that had carpeted the southern landscape with their soft colors, I began to remember that this season was Lucinda’s favorite.  It held a special significance for her as it was a poignant reminder of the last season in which her mother had been alive. 

Lucinda’s mother, Anne, had died the summer after her junior year at Lagrange College.  Three years earlier George and Anna had enrolled their bright daughter in Georgia’s oldest liberal arts college, after her high school graduation, with high hopes of her finding a suitable husband from a wealthy family. Although Lucinda excelled in her studies of art history, she left the college the second semester of her junior year because her beloved mother, Anna, had fallen ill with emphysema.  Lucinda couldn’t cope with the stresses of both schoolwork and an ailing parent so she decided to return home to be at her mother’s bedside.  Anna died two months after Lucinda’s return.  Anna’s death sent her already eccentric and esoteric daughter into a dark, spiraling path that led her to the depths of a lengthy clinical depression.  

During this tumultuous time, Lucinda rarely left her bedroom and refused to leave the house.  This reclusive behavior went on for over a year.  Her grieving and worried father eventually took her to a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with agoraphobia, a disorder in which one fears wide open spaces.  While I sat on the French settee listening to Lucinda talk, an eerie feeling began to come over me as I looked out the large arched window which overlooked the hauntingly beautiful Lafayette Square.  From beyond the window, I could see the fantastical display of the delicate arcs of water that the fountain sent cascading into the air.  Looking at the water softly landing in the pool beneath the fountain reminded me of my first visit to the psychiatrist’s office.  Even though I was sitting in the library of the townhouse, all I could envision was the trickle of rain that had beaded up on the window behind my doctor’s desk.  I remembered sitting there and not even hearing what the doctor had to say as all I could think of was Lucinda.  My mother’s fears had come true; I was odd and had a mental illness.

Suddenly, I was brought out of my trance as Lucinda rose from her chair and retrieved a Cole Porter record.  The sounds of the 1930’s soon filled the room and Lucinda glided back to her chair as if she were dancing at a ball.  As I studied her behavior, I began to realize just how far immersed she was in her childlike world. For the first time, I began to understand her lifelong struggle.

   Despite subsequent years of treatment, she never fully overcame her agoraphobia and did not marry.  Her father, George, realizing that his youngest daughter would need to be provided for for the rest of her life, bequeathed Lucinda a large portion of his estate and the townhouse at 129 Bull Street with all of its’ contents.  The only other occupants of the townhouse, besides Lucinda, were her three adored and adoring Siamese cats.  The townhouse proved to be a living stage set on which Lucinda acted out her very own perpetual childhood, as she spent her days playing classical music on the Steinway piano and reading her favorite Fitzgerald novels in the ancient and dusty library.

As we sat in the library, I was amazed that at nineteen I could still be awestruck by the sheer opulence of my surroundings as I had been coming nearly all of my life.  A French eighteenth century crystal chandelier hung regally from the ceiling, capturing the glinting rays of the morning sunlight and scattering them into a myriad of dancing shadows that had landed on the Aubusson rug.  Ancestral portraits from England hung from the butter yellow walls and seemed to cast knowing glances of approval around the room.  Nearly every tabletop was filled with large sterling frames that held photos of nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters.  The bounty of beautiful objects was a symphony for the eyes.  The built-in bookcases that reached to the ceiling were filled with first edition books and were so tall that the upper shelves had to be accessed with a rolling ladder. 

“How was your first year at college?,” asked Lucinda.

Her question had caught me off guard and I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “I hated U of G.  There was too much partying, it just wasn’t for me,” I said, reaching out to the cocktail table for a macaroon.  It had been my mother’s idea for me to attend her alma mater and it had felt like a bad fit from the beginning.  My enrollment at U of G had turned out to be just another one of her failed attempts to “socialize” me.  “Actually, my studies had been going really well until I got sick.” I started to glance nervously around the room.

Lucinda took a sip from her tea. “What do you mean you got sick?”

“My heart would just start to race all of a sudden and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. My mind would continually race and it seemed as if a constant barrage of thoughts were coming at me nearly all day.  Over spring break, I finally decided to come home and see our doctor.”

A look of concern and a faint smile spread over Lucinda’s face. “What did they find?,” she asked, biting the corner of her crimson lip.

I picked up my Limoges teacup and anxiously swirled a bit of sugar into my tea with a demitasse spoon.  “The doctor ran just about every test.”  I took a deep breath and hesitated before I began to speak.  Nearly every part of me shook with fear.  “He felt that I was suffering from anxiety, but more importantly he discovered that I’m pregnant.” 

Lucinda leaned back in her chair, her eyes wide with disbelief.  As she reached out for my hand she said, “Oh Cora, tell me more.” 

“My family doctor finally sent me to another physician,” I said.

“Well honey, what kind of doctor was it?,” she asked, as she set her teacup down on the table.

“It was a …. I started again and took a deep breath, “it was a psychiatrist.”  A flood of tears began to slowly descend down my cheeks.

“Oh no, sweetheart,” she said, as she reached for the tissue box on the cocktail table and handed one to me.  After a pensive silence and with a tone of concern in her voice she asked, “Well, what his diagnosis and how does he think that it will effect the pregnancy?” 

I hesitated to give an answer and leaned back on the settee.  Every fiber of my being was ashamed and scared.  Finally, I said that I   had obsessive compulsive disorder and that the psychiatrist was not that concerned about my ability to make it through the pregnancy as long I continued to undergo cognitive behavioral therapy and managed my stress levels.

 As she leaned forward in her chair she asked, “Have you told your parents?”

I nervously pulled at my skirt and fidgeted on the settee. “I haven’t told them yet.  About anything.  I can’t even begin to fathom telling them.  They’ll be so ashamed of me for everything.” In between deep sobs, I managed to get out a few more words. “They just don’t understand me, they never have.  That’s why I came to you first.”

 She smiled softly and turned her eyes up to the ceiling, as if retreating into her own world of tangled thoughts, and let out a deep sigh.  With a pleased look of satisfaction she said, “Cora, dear, I always knew that you were just like me.”  Her eyes filled with tears as she told me how touched she was that I had come to her first. “You and I are fragile souls whom the rest of the world doesn’t understand.”

I stared at one of the paintings on the wall; it was of a stern looking woman in a lace bonnet with a little girl standing beside her.  The delicacy of the woman’s features in the portrait made her appear frail, yet at the same time her face revealed a coy sense of strength that allowed her to exert her power over the innocent child.  Studying the portrait made me see my relationship with Lucinda in a new light.  My aunt was stronger than I had thought and had a sense of power over me, much like the woman in the painting had over the girl. At that moment, I felt lost within myself and as distant as the far away souls in the portrait. “I don’t know what to do from here.”

Lucinda sat forward and perched herself on the edge of her chair, her posture made her seem regal and authoritative. “If I were you, I wouldn’t go through any therapy.  Only the good Lord above and I know how many hours I wasted in psychiatrist’s offices.  The only thing psychiatry did for me was make me worse.  I don’t want to see you go through that kind of pain and anguish.”

“But I have to get better.  I want to recover for the baby.”

Lucinda turned towards me on her chair. “Honey, I want you to realize that people like you and me are different.  If society doesn’t have a place for us, we can build our own little world without society. Who are they to say that we’re not normal? What’s normal anyway? All my life, all people ever did was to try and tell me what to do.”

I felt every muscle in my body begin to tense and my heart was racing. “Well, what do you think I should do?”

As she refilled her teacup and adjusted her kimono, she asked, “What about the baby’s father, Cora?”

I glanced nervously at my feet and told her that it had been a brief encounter and that Gordon didn’t know about the baby as he was studying abroad for a year.

Lucinda raised her eyebrows slightly and asked me if I thought there was any chance of Gordon and I ever reconnecting.  I said that I didn’t even know if I would see him again and that there had been nothing more to our brief encounter than a strong physical attraction.

  As Lucinda looked at me, her icy blue eyes were filled with emotion. “Cora, she said, “I’m needing more help around the house these days and you’re all I’ve got left.  With you having the baby…. I thought maybe the two of you could move in with me.  We can help each other.”

“You really want me and the baby to live with you?” I asked.

“I need you Cora and I want to help and protect you…protect you from the world, your illness.  When I pass on, the townhouse can be yours.”

I stared at the tea service on the cocktail table and didn’t look up at Lucinda.  Everything was so confusing.  Lucinda had always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and delighted in my achievements.  Why did she want me to give up the battle of fighting a disorder that could overtake me?  Why didn’t she want to see me and the baby thrive on our own rather than retreat into her world of seclusion? I didn’t want her world for myself, but especially not for the baby and why would she want it for us? I loved her and my heart pained at the thought of hurting her.  I couldn’t tell her no. “I’ll have to think about it,” I said, as I stood up and kissed her on the cheek.
         She seemed disappointed as we walked to the front door together. “Just remember Cora, you and the baby will always be safe from the world here.”

As the door closed behind me, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes.  My soul felt naked, sheathed with an overwhelming sense of vulnerability yet at the same time I felt a strength I had never known before.  There was a hunger deep within me for the richness of a life that reached far beyond the sequestered walls of the townhouse.  I didn’t know who I was anymore but I began to hate what Lucinda saw in me.  She saw me as an extension of herself, a niece destined to carry on the frightening legacy of 129 Bull Street.  It was me who had been chosen to serve as a perpetual steward of her fragile existence.  In my heart, I realized that she wanted me to have the townhouse so that I would always be sheltered from the cruelty of the storm that lay beyond the protective barrier of the delicately etched glass doors.  She wanted me to feel the same sense of safety and security that the townhouse had provided for her.

129 Bull Street had acted as a luxury ocean liner that had helped Lucinda navigate the difficult ups and downs of a life spent struggling against the tumultuous sea that is mental illness.  I began to see the townhouse as an emotional prison and the fear of a life of seclusion engulfed me.  I wanted to be set free from the emotional burden of keeping my pregnancy a secret from my parents.  Somehow, I dug deep within my inner reserves of strength and found the courage to walk home and tell them.

When I returned home it was late afternoon and my father was in his study going over briefs for some cases.  My mother was getting ready for a society benefit for the children’s hospital.  It was clearly an inopportune time for me to tell her about the pregnancy but I couldn’t wait any longer.  The secrecy was eating away at me.  I walked into the bathroom and watched as she put on her diamond chandelier earrings.  She hadn’t even noticed me standing there.  As she looked up, I told her that I had something important to tell her.

“Cora, I really don’t have much time, your father and I are leaving for the ball in a half hour.”

“I really need to talk to you,” I pleaded.

“Alright then, make it brief because we’re picking up the McAllister’s on the way there.”

I began to feel dizzy and I gripped the side of the door to keep my balance. “I’m pregnant,” I said.

A look of horror and indignation spread over my mother’s face. “You’re what?”

“Mama, it’s true, I’m going to have a baby.”

Her face was red with rage and fury.  She took her right hand and slapped me across the face.  “How could you do this to us? How could you tarnish our standing in the community? I’m so disappointed in you!” she screamed.

I fell to my knees on the bathroom floor as my chest heaved with deep sobs. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’m so sorry.”

As she yanked me off of the floor, my mother told me that not a word about my pregnancy was to leave the house.  Her voice was filled with scorn as she said, “I know one thing that is for sure, Cora, and that is that this baby will not be living in this house.  I’m not going to let you ruin my life.  You’ve already ruined my night and I’m not going to do the same for your father.  I’ll tell him after the ball.”

Without looking at me, she turned swiftly out of the bathroom on her Manolo Blahnik heels and left the house with my father.  I went up to my room and watched their car slowly disappear down the road.  I didn’t care if I ever saw them again. All they cared about was themselves.

I awoke in my hospital bed the next morning, the sunlight streaming through the windows, feeling exhausted after having given birth for sixteen hours.  There was a knock at the door and it was Mary wheeling my perfectly beautiful baby into my room.  As she laid her on my chest, I felt reborn as I heard her cry.  I was in awe of the miracle that I had created.  Tears of joy ran down my face as I gently placed my hands on her tiny back. The only gift in my room was a tiny bouquet of flowers and a pink balloon that the hospital gave to all mothers who had delivered.  It was obvious that no one cared about us.  But that didn’t matter anymore, as we had each other to love.  

A discharge nurse came into my room and gave me a folder full of pamphlets on caring for infants.  When she asked who would be picking us up, I hesitated to give an answer.  I finally told her that my mother would be coming, but I knew this was a lie.  She hadn’t even come to see her only grandchild.  As I contemplated what to do next, I saw the shadow of my great aunt Lucinda in the doorframe.  She was carrying the kimono in her arms and it had been made into a beautiful baby blanket.