WHEN WE PULL up outside the block, she is waiting in her best grey skirt and pearl-pink blouse with a patent-leather handbag dangling from her left hand. I usually get out to help her into the passenger seat, opening the door and holding her arm as she crimps herself into the tiny space. She is old and thin now, but she has always been tall, and this tiny Hyundai barely fits her long frame. With her long, creased neck and her tentative movements, she’s like a pink crane trying to fit into a steamer trunk.

Today, she manages to insert herself into the passenger seat before I have even opened my door.