The grandma wears a heavy, black mink coat and a black fur porkpie hat with a silver buckle on the side. She has a little nose and eyeglasses with thin gold rims. She’s seated at a table at the Blue Coyote Café, and she’s holding a gingerbread man cookie.

The granddaughter is wearing the porkpie hat now. It almost covers her eyes. She takes it off and puts it on and takes it off again. “Maybe if we put the gloves in the top,” the grandma suggests. The little girl doesn’t like this idea. She tromps off, her plaid skirt fluttering. When she comes back, the grandma says, “Maybe we can go to Mickey D’s for lunch.”

“McDonald’s,” the little girl insists.

“It’s not called Mickey D’s anymore,” the father puts in. “Mickey D’s is called McDonald’s now. And besides, we’re not even done with breakfast.”

“McDonald’s,” the little girl repeats with glee, and in her excitement she bumps the table. One of the teacups rocks and some liquid sloshes out.

Too late the father warns, “Be careful. You almost spilled on grandma’s coat.”

“No harm done.” The grandma’s tone is mild, a little distant. She mops the small puddle of tea with a napkin. “This old coat...” she starts to say.

Bob got it for her for Christmas. That was, well, that was too many years ago. Davey was off at college and was spending the long break with a friend, so for the first time in their twenty years together it was just she and Bob at home for the holidays. “Maybe we shouldn’t bother with a tree this year,” she’d suggested.

“How can we not have a tree?” Bob replied, incredulous.

“I mean without kids, all that fuss.”

“Hush. We have to have a tree. No more nonsense.”

Then under the tree that Christmas morning was the big box. The lovely mink. So dark, so heavy, so luxuriously soft.”

Minks are out of favor now. Cruelty to animals. But minks are cruel animals. Voracious killers, or so she’d heard. Still, she doesn’t mind wearing their fur on special occasions.

She remembers now that Bob had insisted not only on a tree but on a turkey. Traditions. “And you could bake one of your special pies,” he’d said, hopefulness and innocent certainty mixed in his tone. Bob had a sweet tooth for pecan pie. “The only thing better than your pecan pie is your pussy pie,” Bob had said to her more than one time. Oh, he loved to lick her. He could spend hours. Remembering the thrill makes her quiver just a bit. She tries to steady her hand on the table. The liquid in the teacup shivers.

That long ago afternoon in the upstairs bedroom, she’d taken off all her clothes and tried on her new coat while downstairs Bob basted the bird. Nice. She swirled in the mirror. It looked nice. It felt nice. She looked nice.

She opened the front, a sly hint of striptease for herself, then quickly wrapped the coat closed, grinning into the mirror. Then she took the coat off and turned it inside out and tried it on again. Now that was more like it. It was like Bob licking her everywhere.