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gotten: they helped her lift the stubborn scrim through which most children view their parents and see them instead as real people. There they were by the popcorn stand at the back of the dime store, meeting for the first time. There they were exchanging letters during the war years, getting married on an army base with a handsome first lieutenant serving as maid of honor, settling into a new house that still smelled of sawdust. Helen intends to one day provide Tessa with such a document, hoping against hope that her daughter's response won't be, “Mom. Why are you giving me this?”
    On the sale rack, Helen finds a pair of pants and a sweater that she likes, as well as one that she is sure Tessa will like; she's sure of it, it is exactly her style. She won't give it to her. Instead, she'll wear it, and if Tessa admires it, then she'll give it to her. There's more than one way to skin a cat , she thinks, then wonders if anyone ever says that anymore. How many things in her past are now virtually unknown by people her daughter's age? Not long ago, on the phone with Tessa, she said, “Well, you never miss your water. …”
    “What?” Tessa said.
    “You never miss your water.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    Helen laughed, incredulous. “‘You never miss your water till your well runs dry?’”
    “Okay,” Tessa said. And then, “Who has wells?”
    Helen goes to the dressing rooms at the back of the store to try on the clothes. When they don't work out (Size 12, my eye , Helen thinks, inspecting her butt in the mirror) the young woman who takes the clothes from her seems genuinely sorry, and asks if Helen would like help finding something else.
    “Oh, no thanks,” Helen says. “I don't really need anything. Well, not clothes, anyway.”
    “There are some great-smelling new candles out there,” the woman tells her, and Helen says thank you, she'll look.
    The woman is right, there are some wonderful-smelling candles, but Helen is not about to pay forty-eight dollars for the one she likes best. Why have candles all of a sudden become so popular, thereby making them so expensive? And why do the ones in nice stores seem so much more desirable than the ones at, oh, say, garage sales, when they are essentially or even literally the same thing? She takes her second choice, which also has a lovely scent but is less than half the price. Then, as long as she has saved herself so much money, she buys a candle for Tessa, too. Then one for her mother, and one for Midge.
    As she waits in line to pay, Helen watches the people in the store. Mostly it's young women shopping, but there are some men sprawled out on sofas waiting for them—talking on cell phones or text-messaging, yawning, lazily checking out the other women. Here and there are women Helen's age: one looks at dishes, one is trying on a necklace featuring birds that Helen likes very much and wishes she'd seen first; she's sure the woman is going to buy it because she's shopping with a friend and friends always talk each other into buying things they don't need. If they're friends at all. She and Midge have made an art of it. When they are shopping together, Helen will come to Midge with some expensive article in hand, reveal the price tag, and Midge will say, “Get it. Life is short; we'll be bedridden soon. Get it,” and Helen will buy it. Or Midge will say, “I love this, but I just don't need it,” and Helen will say, “So?”
    When it's Helen's turn to pay, the clerk says she herself bought the sweater Helen has selected for Tessa. “It's for my daughter,” Helen says, and the clerk says, “Oh, she'll love it.” She tells Helen confidentially that the candle she picked out burns a lot longer than the more expensive ones and now Helen feels really on the ball. On the ball. Does anyone say that anymore? And what does it mean, anyway? If you're on a ball, aren't you nervous about falling off? She imagines an elephant in a cartoon, wearing a hat and a