My grandmother used my new name for the first time

Dear Delyara, My grandmother is eighty-seven and has called me by my old name every time we have spoken since I transitioned. She says she forgets, that she is trying, that at her age names become tangled. I believed her and did not believe her at the same time. Today, during Sunday lunch, she asked me to pass the salt and used my name. My real name. She said it casually, without pausing, without looking around to see whether everyone noticed. I handed her the salt and immediately began crying. She looked alarmed and asked what she had done wrong. My mother explained, and Grandma became quiet. Then she reached across the table, placed her hand over mine, and repeated the name slowly. She said she had been practising it every morning while making tea. She had written it on a card beside the kettle. I had spent months thinking she did not care enough to learn. The truth was that she had been teaching an eighty-seven-year-old mouth a new path in private. I kept the card after lunch. My name is written seven times in her shaking handwriting, each version slightly more confident than the one before.