I made a journey to 135th/Quivera today for the single purpose of recovering my beautiful bracelet from Jessica.  With that secured from the lost-and-found at the store where I had tried on dresses three weeks ago, I headed back to the city.

The thirty-minute drive back home threatened to overwhelm me.  I had eaten little, pressing my strength on chore after chore through the day.  I realized that I had gotten peckish about 119th and Roe, just as I started to pass the McDonald’s.  A jagged shudder ran through my body:  this is the very McDonald’s to which my favorite curmudgeon and I would drive for ice cream cones after dinner at Houlihan’s.  Want some dessert, honey? he’d say, and off we’d go.

I signaled to change lanes for an unexpected detour.  Five minutes later, I drove out of the McDonald’s parking lot with cone in hand.  A lightness passed through my body.  Neither sugar nor the wheat of the cone appear on my allowed food list.  But a smile danced on my face all the way home.  Jay must be beaming down on me from paradise.