An Elderly Lady is up to No Good

On her 87th Christmas Eve, Maud goes to the cemetery to decorate the family grave where her parents and sister are buried. As she wheels the decorations through the snow using a walker that she stole from her apartment building door, she thinks back on her earliest years.

Maud has fond memories of the lavish Christmas parties her parents threw before her father lost all of the family’s money and died, leaving them to struggle without him. Her mother died two years later, and Maud was left to take care of her sister, Charlotte, who experienced mental illness and always resented Maud. Maud’s small teaching salary was not enough to live well. She could not even afford to fully heat the large apartment, and the sisters lived in just two rooms in the colder months.

After she finishes at the cemetery, Maud goes to a nearby bus stop. She is pleased at her recent acquisition of the walker. She does not really need it, but it helps her maneuver on icy sidewalks, gives her a place to sit while she waits for the bus, and creates sympathy so that people offer up their seats on the bus and hold doors open for her.