I am shocked when my Bubbe Sarah sits down across from me at the Shalimar Diner not because she died in 1991, and not because the Rego Park restaurant never re-opened after the Covid shut down, but because until now I believed that if any of my dead relatives would slide into a corner booth with me it would be my recently deceased dad, her son, as he loved the coffee and sugar-free Danish here. Although disappointed, I do not wish to be rude, so I lean across the table and give her a peck on her damp cheek before handing her a menu. I know, you would have rather it was him, she pats her set-and-washed-once-a-week-from-a-drugstore-bottle-orange bouffant. I shake my head and say no even though she is right, I do not want her with me in this story. It’s ok, I wasn’t his favorite either. I wasn’t anyone’s favorite. Not even my own. I don’t know how to respond and am grateful when the waitress approaches our table to take our orders. While she inquiries about the soup of the day and orders a cup of chicken noodle and tuna salad on toast, I notice details of her face that I am certain I never saw before. Dark circles under deep-set eyes that are bloodshot in the corners, blue veins dotted with sunspots that make me think of a young child’s springtime drawing, and a single grey hair sprouting from a mole beneath her sagging jawline. Bubbe, why now? She does not answer me. Only looks out the window overlooking the parking lot. Why here? You always said you didn’t care for it here? You barely left the apartment. Bubbe uses her teeth to rip open a pack of saltines that she crumbles into the broth. Hmmm, yes. True. But you are seeing me here. Now. Isn’t that some kind of story. She blows on the hot soup with two short breaths followed by one long one that makes the steam float sideways, the same way my dad did for me when I was a little girl.