elizabethlevett

Berenice is a hundred and three. Or else she’s five and making all kinds of mischief in school. Or else she’s eleven and listening to her father playing mandolin. Or else she’s falling in love with a man named Vic with those soulful eyes. Or else she is a young mother of twins writing for the newspaper and running for public office. Or else she is a dear thing sitting at a dining table on a stack of chairs so she can reach her plate of pasta and a glass of wine as big as her head.

Berenice is a wonder. Berenice is a million things not defined by her age or by the cancer that has lately decided she has lived long enough.

Berenice will tell you different. She will tell you about Atlantic City and the crazy things she saw there so long ago. She will tell you she loves good poetry and Jim Morrison. She may even tell you about the mob. She will tell you she wants to learn to play the piano. She will tell you you’re such a pretty girl even though you’re sixty and then some.

Berenice will tell you she may not want to get out of bed today. She will tell you maybe someone has been stealing her things at the home. She will say she doesn’t like the food there very much and that the men are not very friendly or good looking. She’d rather go to the Italian American club or go see live music and sit right up front.

Berenice will tell you she wants to keep on living because she doesn’t want to miss a thing.

(Photo of Berenice by Claude Palmer.)