At some point in Nanny’s life, Red Lobster was the epitome of fine dining. This is still where she wants to go for her birthday every year. She always dresses up for this outing and always orders the most expensive lobster dish on the menu. She eats a few bites and packs up the rest – she will get two more meals out of what she takes home. This year she is dressed in a long white tunic, heavily embroidered. It is old and I notice a couple of light stains toward the bottom. I make a mental note to go through her wardrobe for stains and holes. Still, with her white hair, she looks beautiful.

Going to a restaurant with Nanny is never easy . She grew up with servants and has never noticed the difference between her old household staff and the people who wait on her in restaurants. She is imperious bordering on rude, and literally orders her order. Her first request is always water, which she orders both smugly and disappointedly. When we were children, no matter where she took us to eat, water was brought to the table without request as soon as we sat down. But slowly this courtesy was retired, and she has never gotten over the shift in restaurant policy. It was many years before she stopped decreasing her tip by 25% in response, her own policy that made us drop our eyes uncomfortably when the check came.

Our server is a middle-aged man who has an attitude before he even gets to the table. I can tell this is not going to go well, because the imaginary tennis game starts in my head. He finds her water order irritating, probably because she tells him that she would also like a cocktail but she’s not going to tell him what it is until she gets her water (she serves!). He returns and thumps a glass onto the table, sloshing water over the edge (he returns!). She asks him if he’s going to clean that up (she has the advantage!). He picks up her napkin and wipes up the water (error, her serve!). She asks him if he’s going to get her a clean napkin (she serves!). He says he’ll bring one back after he puts her order in (backhand!). She says she’s not going to tell him what her order is until she gets a clean napkin (smash! she scores!). I have given up trying to run interference and am silently pressing my fingertips into my eyelids to stave off the massive headache I feel looming. I am going to have to do battle with this man. Obnoxious as she is, she is my Nanny and I just can’t tolerate anyone being rude to her in front of me.

The server stomps off, muttering that he’ll come back when she’s ready to order. I think he has actually gone to get a clean napkin, but doesn’t want to give her the upper hand by telling her so. She demands that I read her the menu while we wait, starting at the top with the shrimp entrees, even though we both know she is going to order lobster. I am partway through the shrimp scampi description when the server returns, places a napkin in front of her, pauses and then, shockingly, drops on one knee beside her.

“Was your husband a Marine?” Somehow, amidst the jangle of charms on her bracelet, he has seen the small gold anchor and recognized it for what it was, a symbol of the U.S. Marines.

Her demeanor softens. She tells him that her husband fought at the Battle of Iwo Jima. That he altered his birth certificate so that he could enlist at 15. That when he died at age 65, he did so with the bullet he took still inside him. Gently, the man picks up her tiny hand with its soft wrinkles and purple nails, and kisses it. Then he rolls up his sleeve to reveal a Marine tattoo, almost identical to her charm.

“Wait..just wait here,” he tells us. He leaves, almost at a run. When he returns, he brings an older man with him. This man seems younger than she is, but he is still an old man. He is thin and wiry and wrinkled. He wears a dingy white cap and the dirty apron of a busboy or dishwasher. Like the server, he was also a Marine. There in the middle of the crowded restaurant, both men kneel by her side and converse with her in whispers. Servers and patrons step over their outstretched legs but they do not notice. Her long white dress has taken on the shimmer of a queen’s raiment. To these men she is royalty, the widow of an Iwo Jima survivor. They are privileged to meet her and I, an outsider, am privileged to bear witness to this moment.