Gracie

I was lying when I said that David was the only other Asian. There is also Gracie, a short, elderly, wrinkly, ashen-faced Chinese woman who comes to kitchen every week. Gracie does not speak very much, but when she does, most people cannot understand what she is saying. She often lingers at the house after meals and sits in a chair reading and keeping to herself. In some ways, she is in her own little world.

Once, Gracie had been sitting at the table for a long time and people in line were getting upset. Someone tried to say something to Gracie and she began screaming and yelling at the person. The rest of us just kind of shrugged...there wasn't much that could be done; she was going to take as long as she wanted to drink that bowl of soup and that's how it was.

Rumor has it that Gracie used to be a professor at the university. They say that she had a PhD in math and then something happened. Society calls this "losing one's mind," but for some reason, I want to believe that it wasn't so simple.