Raising a child at my age is a marathon you run on bad knees. My pension was a thin blanket in winter. Bills came in like waves. But Emily would thump into the kitchen in her too-big nightgown and say, “Read to me, Grandma?” and the fear would loosen its grip just enough.

Years rushed by. One day she crossed a high school stage; another day she called to say she’d been offered a job; then she walked into my kitchen with a young man named James who couldn’t look at anyone but her. One Sunday she held out her hand and said, cheeks pink, “He asked me to marry him.” I cried into the dish towel like a fool and told her how proud her parents would be.

Dress shopping was a disaster. Price tags that made my eyes water, gowns that swallowed her whole. After the fifth store she sank into a little velvet chair, defeated. “Maybe I’ll buy something simple,” she said. It was like ice water on my spine. “On your wedding day? Absolutely not.” The idea came out of my mouth before I could talk myself out of it. “Let me make it,” I said. “Let me sew your dress.”