Taken from "Blind Assassin"

I must
admit I have a daydream about you.

One
evening there will be a knock at the door and it will be you.
You’ll be dressed in black, you’ll be toting one of those little
rucksacks they all have now instead of handbags. It will be
raining, as it is this evening, but you won’t have an umbrella,
you’d scorn umbrellas; the young like their heads to be whipped
about by the elements, they find if bracing. You’ll stand on the
porch, in a haze of damp light; your glossy dark hair will be
sodden, your black outfit will be soaked, the drops of rain will
glitter on your face and clothes like sequins.

You’ll
knock. I’ll hear you, I’ll shuffle down the hallway, I’ll open the
door. My heart will jump and flutter; I’ll peer at you, then
recognize you: my cherished, my last remaining with. I’ll think to
myself that I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful, but I won’t say
so; I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve gone scatty. Then I’ll
welcome you, I’ll hold out my arms to you, I’ll kiss you on the
cheek, sparsely, because it would be unseemly to let myself go.
I’ll cry a few tears, but only a few, because the eyes of the
elderly are arid.

I’ll
invite you in. You’ll enter. I wouldn’t recommend it to a young
girl, crossing the threshold of a place like mine, with a person
like me inside it–an old woman, an older woman, living alone in a
fossilized cottage, with hair like burning spiderwebs and a weedy
garden full of God knows what. There’s a whiff of brimstone about
such creatures: you may even be a little frightened of me. But
you’ll also be a little reckless, like all the women in our family,
and so you will come in anyway. Grandmother, you will say; and through that one
word I will no longer be disowned.

I’ll sit
you down at my table, among the wooden spoons and
the twig wreaths, and the candle which is never
lit. You’ll be shivering, I’ll give you a towel, I’ll wrap you in a
blanket, I’ll make you some cocoa.

Then I’ll
tell you a story. I’ll tell you this story: the
story of how you came to be here, sitting in my kitchen, listening
to the story I’ve been telling you. If by some miracle that were to
happen, there would be no need for this jumbled mound of
paper.

What is it
that I’ll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask.
Not forgiveness, which isn’t yours to bestow. Only
a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me.
Don’t prettyfy me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish you
be a decorated skull.

But I
leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have?
By the time you read this last page, that–if anywhere–is the only
place I will be. 

(Margaret Atwood, Blind
Assasin, pp. 636-37)