Celeste Hartwell rarely called without knowing exactly what she wanted, but she always spent the first minute making the request sound like affection.
“Maren, darling,” she had said, stretching the word darling until it felt like ribbon around a box I had not agreed to open.
“You’re so good with details.”
I had moved away from my desk because two coworkers were nearby.
“What do you need, Mom?”
“It’s only a small thing.”
Nothing Celeste described as a small thing had ever been small.
She wanted a private room for her sixtieth birthday dinner at The Alder Room in Atlanta.
She wanted a long table, a custom cake, a fixed dinner menu, and enough space for relatives, family friends, and several people whose names mattered more to her than their relationship did.
“You know how restaurants are with people my age,” she said.
Celeste was sixty, but she carried herself as though aging were an accusation she could defeat through discipline.
