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it open to members of her family. Catherine knew that if she chose, she could just move into the big old house. Her grandmother’s maid, Clara, would feed her and shelter her, and her grandmother would never ask when she was planning to leave or why she didn’t go to college or do something with her life. She could disappear from life here.
    But the last thing in the world Catherine wanted to do was to disappear.
    “Good afternoon, Cathy,” her grandmother said now, and presented a powdery white cheek for a kiss.
    “I was in the library. Looking at the albums. I thought you might—”
    “Look,” her grandmother said as if Catherine had not been speaking. Kathryn indicated with their eyes what Catherine should see.
    Through the open conservatory doorway, Catherine and her grandmother watched as a lady, one of their guests, pointed up at the mistletoe which was tied by a red ribbon to the living room chandelier. A man smiled, took the woman in his arms, and kissed her.
    “Mistletoe,” Kathryn began.
    Catherine knew at once by the tone of her grandmother’s voice that the older woman was about to launch into one of her lecturing spells. Sometimes she and Shelly and Ann enjoyed these, for their grandmother was full of unusual and often amusing information. The grandchildren had gone into giggling fits at the news that dandelion had powerful diuretic qualities and was known in Europe as “pissen-lit,” or piss-a-bed or pittle-bed.
    But often Kathryn’s speeches about her beloved flowers were rambling and incomprehensible, full of Latin and scientific terms. Today, because Catherine was bored, and because she needed someone in her family to pay attention to her, she tried to look interested.
    “We treat it so frivolously,” Kathryn said. “Yet mistletoe has a fascinating history. It used to be thought sacred; it used to be worshiped!”
    Kathryn sat down on her enormous high-backed wicker chair, which rose above her and around like a throne. Catherine sank onto a wicker stool.
    “Mistletoe is a parasite, you know. It has no roots. Think of that. No roots. Then how does it grow? It belongs to Santalales, the sandalwood order of flowering plants who live off of other plants. In primitive times all these plants were considered sacred because of their ability to survive without roots.
    “You see, mistletoe grows best in oak trees, which have long been considered sacred. In the winter, when the oak tree leaves have fallen, the mistletoe remains fresh and green. So mistletoe, which does not grow in the ground, but appears high in the sky, came to mean in many cultures ‘life everlasting.’ There are numerous superstitions about it, and it used to be thought the cure for all sorts of diseases.”
    Suddenly the older woman turned and looked directly at Catherine with her pale, magic blue eyes.
    “Something to ponder, don’t you think? That a living thing without roots, without a home, without nurturing and care, can still flourish, and more than flourish, thrive, and be useful, and even magical. Even if the host on which it begins has turned brown and hopeless, the mistletoe remains green and living. It can move on.”
    The old woman shifted on her wicker chair. She shook her head and rubbed her arthritic hands, as if smoothing the bones. “My back hurts. You’re my favorite grandchild, Catherine. Sometimes I think you’re the only one in my family who has any understanding of how important flowers and plants really are. But I must excuse myself. I must go lie down. I’m not as young as I once was. No, no, don’t get up. I can manage to get my old body to my room alone.”
    Catherine watched as her grandmother, erect as always, but painfully erect, the straight carriage purchased by pain, rose and walked over the flagstones and out of the conservatory. She remained on her wicker stool, looking around her at the plants growing or hanging, green stalagmites or stalactites; it was as if she were inside a breathing,