ABSTRACT
Anna had outlived her only son by 20 years. She had lost track of her grandson, who had been in prison a thousand miles away, and her last sister had died some years before. She was without blood kin. But Anna had a powerful need to belong to someone, and so she “created” her own family. She called her case manager Son, whether he liked it or not. “Now, Son,” she would say, “you get out of this business of taking care of poor people—except for me, of course. You find you a line of work where you can make some money! Then we’ll take us a trip over to Washtucna, and see how many people we know buried in the cemetery there.” Anna instructed the latchkey child in the apartment next to hers as if his very life depended on it, and it may have at times. And she adopted a proprietary air with the manager of her garden apartment complex, consulting with her about hair color; advising her how to get rid of the “dope fiends” and just plain mean people; and presenting her with cookies, sometimes with a gray hair baked in because of impaired vision.
