Dear Old Woman,

I don’t know if you are still alive or if you will remember me if you are, but you were sitting one table away from me in the Main Street Diner, and you seemed to close your right eye every time that I looked at you. I thought that you probably recognized me from the television and that you were winking at me, but then I realized that you couldn’t help it. I realized that you had had a stroke and that you couldn’t really move that side of your face. I still wish that you really would have been winking at me.

Michael Kimball

© Four Walls Eight Windows

© Fourth Estate

Michael Kimball has published two novels, The Way the Family Got Away and How Much of Us There Was, both of which have been translated into many languages. His third novel, Dear Everybody, is due out this fall. He has also published pieces in many literary magazines, including, most recently, Open City, Prairie Schooner, and Post Road. He lives in Baltimore with his wife.