I didn't know until I opened it that it was my grandparents' dictionary--those neat rows of page numbers corresponding to each English letter; the characteristic script, easily identifiable among Russian immigrants of a certain age. I had forgotten our assembly in the apartment, taking this dictionary and Esenin, two volumes, light-grey hardcovers with emerald green print on the binding.

I had forgotten that the cemetery was old and beautiful; I had forgotten the family of deer who disappeared as quickly as they had emerged from the gaps in the shifting sunlight, seemingly, or the trees.

I was struck, as I stared at this once-blank separator, by the irony: My grandmother always hoped I'd translate. All my resistance. All my doubt. And here I am, Oxford dictionary in hand......