The elevator was crowded, I held my mother’s hand, my three older brothers would come up on the next elavator with my dad.

I smelled amonia, cleaning fluids, Mr. Clean maybe, I wasn’t sure, I just knew I didn’t like this place.

People were all talking at once, someone down the hall shrieked and I clung closer to my mother, held her hand in a tighter grip.

My mother spoke to a nurse.

We went into a tiny room. A small shriveled old woman in a gown sat in a chair and stared. Her hair was jet black.

My mother handed the woman a bag, she opened it without a word. In the bag was a powder puff, which the old woman began to immediately apply liberally to her face.

A cloud of powder dust rising to the ceiling.
My father and brothers arrived, all talking at once.

The old woman , now covered in powder, reached into a small clutch purse, pulled out 4 coins and handed one to each of us boys.

In my outstretched hand I held a shiny new 1982 quarter.

“Say thank you to your great grandmother,” my mother said.