"We taught each other girlhood; learned to be women together. She started using hair rollers when she was sixteen and I laughed when I saw her wearing them for the first time, going to bed in her nightgown, because she looked like a grandmother. The next morning, as usual, she was awake before me, and when I walked into the kitchen, I saw her sitting by the table, hunched over a book and her coffee, her hair dishevelled with the rollers still in but drooping, -- and I was hit with such an intense burst of love, I had to stifle a gasp. I never told her, but it is this image that is ingrained...