Even her silence had a way of making the room feel warmer.
I’ve always been close to my mom, but Grandma was my safe place. I’d go to her house after school, help her fold laundry, or watch her slice apples with that same old paring knife she used since before I was born. She always smelled like Ivory soap and cinnamon.
What I didn’t realize until much later was how fractured things were between Grandma and her other daughter, my Aunt Karen.
Karen was 10 years older than Mom.
She left town the second she graduated from college and only came back when it served her. She lived in a modern condo in Chicago, wore expensive perfume that lingered long after she left the room, and acted like our family was just something she’d outgrown. Still, Grandma never said a single bad word about her.
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