Her feet were asleep again.  She looked at her shiny patent leather shoes sticking straight out from the plastic backseat, wriggling them, trying to make the prickling stop.  Through the triangle window, she watched tree limbs and telephone poles glide by.  Then the car slowed, and she recognized the trees of her grandfather's street.  She peered outside, careful not to place her shoes on the seat.

Trees overshadowed the yard—thick, giant trees with trunks lifting the ground and limbs reaching over, touching like fingertips.  Birds chuckled from newly opened leaves.  Set deep in shadow, wrapped in chipping brown paint, Grandfather's house waited.

The car door opened, and she stepped out lightly, swishing her skirt and her curly hair, black patent bright against the wide, cracked sidewalk that wasn't meant for hopscotch, only walking.  The street was silent, as if holding its breath.  She followed her parents to the house.

The front steps were steep, and the porch was hollow, and she scuffed her dark shoes across it musically.  The railing was lined with forgotten flowerpots and brown paper leaves leftover from fall.  A porch swing hung crookedly in the corner, anchored by spider webs.

Grandmother appeared at the door, her blue hair stiff and wavy, her red mouth stiff and flat, touching cheeks with her mother, eyes with her father, bidding them in.  The room behind her was gold with sunlight filtering through yellowed blinds.  It smelled of coffee and furniture polish.

She looked back at the musical porch.

"Child," said Grandmother, her clawed fingers reaching, "you sit right here and watch this television.  Quiet.  Your grandfather is resting."  Then she swallowed her parents with kitchen sounds.

The wooden chair bit the backs of her legs as she kicked her bright shoes against the room's dim light.  She watched the snowy, rolling screen, watched the sun play peek-a-boo behind the drapes.  She slid until her feet rested flat on the floor, her chin upon her chest, her dress bunched unladylike above her knees.  Grandmother laughed in the kitchen.  Birds laughed outside in the trees.

She stood, looking out the open door at the empty porch swing and the motionless street.  A soap commercial flickered on the television.  The kitchen door was closed.  She looked at the flowers drawn on the rug, tracing their petals with her toe, edging past tables with fat, fringed lamps.  At the curio cabinet, she peered through smeared glass at the bronze dog, the ivory elephant, the little dish with a waterfall and a crack down its middle.  She looked at the picture of her mother dressed like a graduate and, still looking, bumped her feet on the edge of the stairs.

The staircase was shadowed, the landing dark.  She could hear it echo must be quiet, must be quiet, must.  She looked toward the kitchen, taking the first step backward, taking the second and the third, pausing with each creak.  Her hand felt damp and sticky upon the banister.  Then the banister ended.  She turned around.

There were five doors, all of them closed.  The walls were dotted with pictures she couldn't see.  She looked down at the living room, at wooden chairs and tables, doilies hiding their scratches, and then reached for the knob of the nearest door, turning it slowly.

The room was filled with sunlight and birdsong.  It smelled like flowers.  She looked across at bright-colored books, at a globe once used to show her the sea, and the skunk-fur cap worn only on Fourth of July.  Her grandfather sat at an open window.  He wore a blue robe.  She stepped inside, shutting the door.

Grandfather looked up at the sound, scowling as if he didn't know her.  Then the frown eased away.  "Hello, Pumpkin."

She moved toward him, her patent shoes tapping the bare floor, passing by the blue globe, the skunk cap, the rumpled bed with the water glass beside it.  Filmy curtains framed the window, stirring in the breeze.  She looked outside, expecting the dark limbs of trees, and saw instead a wide yard filled with sunny green grass and a squat, brown fence holding the boundaries.  Farther were the backs of other houses, decorated with clotheslines.

She leaned on the sill.  Outside, reaching nearly to the window was a tall bush, purple and weighted with fat, spiky flowers.  The smell rose like a purple halo, drifting into the room.

She turned around.  Grandfather sat on a straight-backed chair, his hands oddly quiet, shoulders too narrow beneath the thick robe.  His face was being erased by creases and lines, but his eyes looked the same, and she moved nearer until they were all that she saw.

"Grandpa," she said, "are you going to die?"

He smiled then, wrapping her in his arms, pulling her into the warmth of his lap.  He smelled of soap and medicine.  His chin prickled her cheek.  She looked out the window and could see the tips of the purple flowers reaching toward the room.

"One of the things I think I'll miss most," he said, "is lilacs in the spring."

She leaned against him, waiting for him to continue, looking out at the lilacs and the wide space beyond.  A dog barked, and she wondered what kind of dog might bark on her grandfather's street.

Then the door burst open, and Grandmother cried, "Of all the places to get into!  Get off your poor grandfather and leave him be!"

"Now, she was only keeping me company."

"Company, was she?  When you're needing your rest?  And who opened this window?  Of all the things."

The window slammed shut, hushing the dog, ending the birdsong.  The blind dropped, cutting away the light.  She closed her eyes, trying to picture the green yard, trying to feel what she felt when she first saw it.

Grandmother's fingers sank into her arm, pulling her away from the warm lap, pushing her toward the shadowed hall.  "We've been looking everywhere.  Your parents are leaving.  Why can't you be good?"

She squirmed, trying to look back, but all she saw was the empty bed.  "Goodbye, Grandpa."

The door shut on her words.

She sat in the car with her feet pulled secretly onto the seat, her dress over her knees, thinking about her grandfather's room with its tumble of books and rumple of bed sheets, and Grandfather, himself, in a straight-backed chair.  And she tried to imagine death and dying, but could picture only the lilac bush outside her grandfather's window and how empty it would seem when the blossoms were gone.