The memory was so vivid, Dani might have been back on that cold, dreary December afternoon when she’d visited her dying grandmother-her mother’s mother. Claire Chandler had withered from an elegant society matron into a skeleton wrapped in sagging yellowed skin. Yet she retained her commanding presence, receiving her only grandchild in the cavernous living room of her New York apartment. She’d had her thinning hair fixed and wore a green silk robe, embroidered in red and gold at the sleeves, the one she wore every Christmas, not just this one, her last. It was way too big for her.

Dani remembered the strength in her grandmother’s voice when she’d called her young granddaughter to her side. Christmas carols had played softly on the stereo. “The First Noel” and “Joy to the World.” A huge Christmas tree, strung with hundreds of tiny white lights, awaited decorating. Big white boxes, brought in from storage, were filled with ornaments of handblown glass, painted toy soldiers, fragile angels, silver snowflakes. Dani was permitted only to hang the wooden ornaments. She’d eyed the nativity set carefully arranged on a polished antique table. She wanted desperately to play with the beautiful Madonna and the little baby Jesus, and the sheep and the Wise Men, but even touching the English porcelain figures was forbidden. Also off-limits was the New England village set up on another table, with its steepled white church, colonial houses and old-fashioned carolers. Ordinarily Dani would have pressed her case, but her mother had asked her to be especially nice that afternoon.

Dani had dug into the pocket of her wool blazer and produced a paper snowflake. “I made it myself-it’s origami. You can hang it on your tree if you want.”

Even now, she could remember her grandmother’s trembling, bony hand as she’d taken the origami snowflake. “Thank you, dear. It’s lovely. You’re such a thoughtful child.”

The snowflake, Dani had known, would end up in one of the scrapbooks her grandmother kept, put up on a shelf to be preserved for Dani’s own children. Her parents had stuck dozens of her origami snowflakes on windows, the refrigerator, hung them on the tree. But that was their style, not Claire Chandler’s, and Dani had made the snowflake for her because she loved her, not because she wanted praise and recognition.

“And how was school today, Danielle?” her grandmother had asked, regal even in illness.

“Good. All the kids call me Dani.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because I asked them to,” Dani had said without fanfare. “Danielle’s such a prissy name.”

“Now, wherever did you get such a notion? Danielle’s a perfectly lovely name.”

“Mattie said it sounds kind of prissy-”

“Mattie? Danielle, where are your manners?” Claire had coughed, her skin going from yellow to red to white in the course of a couple of minutes. “Next you’ll be calling us all by our first names.”

“Oh, I’d never do that. It’s just that Mattie hates to be called Grandmother.”

“Well, she is one, even if she’d rather not admit it. We all get old. We all die.”

And Dani had asked her, “Are you going to die?”

Her grandmother’s sickly blue eyes had widened for a moment, then softened. “Yes, dear, I’m going to die-sooner, I’m afraid, rather than later. Please don’t be sad. I’ve led a full, wonderful life, even in the relatively few years I’ve had on this earth. I wish only that we’d had more time together.” She’d smiled gently even as Dani’s eyes brimmed with tears. “You’re a remarkable child. I should have told you that more often. I should have told my own daughters that more often. It’s not always easy…One does one’s best.”

A maid had brought a tray of hot cider and gingerbread cookies, and Claire Chandler had permitted Dani to play with the New England village, although the nativity set was still forbidden, on the grounds that playing with religious figures was improper. Claire’s only requirement had been that Dani gather up all the pieces and play with them on the carpet next to the couch, close to her grandmother.

By the time her mother arrived to pick Dani up, Claire had fallen asleep. Dani had leaned over and kissed her grandmother’s sunken cheek, something she’d never done on her own before. “Goodbye, Dani,” her grandmother had said, and she seemed to try to smile.

On the elevator down to the lobby, Dani had noticed that her mother was crying. “Did Grandmother die?”

“No-no, not yet.”

When the elevator’s polished brass doors opened, her mother had rushed out, sobbing. “I’m not going to end up like my mother, I swear I’m not.”

Left to follow, Dani had joined her mother on the street. The temperature had dropped, and the wind had picked up; a light snow was falling. Her mother had taken Dani’s hand and began walking briskly in the opposite direction of their building.

“Where are we going?” Dani had asked, the wind stinging her cheeks.

“The subway station,” her mother said tightly.

Dani had made no response. She often rode the subway with Mattie, who would spout off about the virtues of public transportation and conserving the world’s resources, but never with her mother.

Lilli had stopped abruptly. “You look cold.” Then she’d pulled off her pale gray cashmere scarf and wrapped it around Dani’s neck for added warmth, tucking one edge up over her mouth and nose.

They’d taken the subway to Greenwich Village, her mother acting so much as if it was a grand adventure that Dani got caught up in her excitement. “Are we going to see Mattie?” she’d asked.

“No, she’s gone ballooning in New Mexico.”

That had sounded fun to Dani, but even her father didn’t like the idea of her getting into a hot-air balloon with his mother. “Can we go to New Mexico?”

“Maybe during your winter vacation, after-” Her mother’s eyes had clouded, her shoulders sagging. “One day we’ll go.”

They’d walked to a section of Greenwich Village where even Mattie, who had few rules, hadn’t permitted Dani to wander on her own. Lilli had plunged down two concrete steps to a heavy, dirty door, its black paint chipped. She’d peeled off a black leather glove and knocked. There was one window, blackened with soot and covered with iron bars, and a sign over the door that said the Flamingo.

A voice yelled for them to come inside.

Even now, so many years later, Dani could smell the smoke inside that dark bar. It had been decorated-of course-with plastic flamingos and fake palm branches. In the dim light, she’d seen her mother’s smile falter.

A black-haired man had greeted her from behind the bar. “You the lady who called?”

Lilli had nodded, looking faintly disapproving, the way she did when giving in to Dani and buying hot pretzels from a street vendor. “You’re Mr. Garcia.”

He was a Cuban exile, he explained. He had played jazz for the tourists in Havana before Castro. A picture of John F. Kennedy hung above the cash register. One of Fidel Castro hung behind the bar; it was struck with darts. Licking her lips, Lilli slid a hundred-dollar bill across the worn bar. Until that moment Dani hadn’t been sure her mother even knew how to write a check; she’d always seemed to pay for things just by nodding. Mattie had insisted Dani learn how to handle money.

“The place is all yours,” Mr. Garcia had said, a sweep of his chubby arm taking in all of the small, empty bar.

Lilli had removed her coat and hat, then helped Dani with the complicated clasps of the dress coat she’d worn for her visit with her grandmother. Her hair had crackled with static electricity as she pulled off the cashmere scarf.

“I’m going to sing some songs,” her mother had told her. “You can sit up at the table by yourself and be my audience. How’s that?”

“Can I have a Coke?”

Lilli smiled. “And pretzels.”

She’d given Mr. Garcia more money, and he’d brought a tall glass of soda and a bowl of pretzels to Dani, who’d sat alertly at a rickety round table, aware that this wasn’t like sitting on Mattie’s front stoop discussing baseball and politics with anybody who happened by. This, she’d thought at age eight, was really scary.