Everywhere she looked she saw silver. Silver hair, silver wheelchairs, silver trays of medications. Not the place she wished to be. “These are old people”, Irene thought, looking at her wrinkled little hand. But planted there by circumstances – an icy sidewalk, a shaky cane, a fragile hip- there she sat.

Omaha was where she’d settled with Otto. They were the first of their sort in that cow town, she remembered with a smile. Bohemians. Now nobody even knew what Bohemian meant. When Irene was young, Bohemians squirreled themselves away in old buildings, waited tables, penned poetry during breaks. People who thought of themselves as Bohemian these days worked for ad agencies and lived in expensive lofts, decorated with sleek furniture.

Her one joy, now that Otto was a fading memory, was Sunflower. Their only child. Sunflower was fifty-ish now. She brought San Diego warmth with her twice a year. And always a gift – a few airline bottles of booze and a little weed. This year, wrapped in silver paper.

Now, Sunflower, she was Bohemian.

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