We settled into our usual chairs.
Then Ruth looked at me.
“Olivia, there’s something I should have told you years ago.”
Her expression was unusually serious.
“Something about your mother.”
I wrapped my hands around my teacup.
“What about her?”
Ruth began speaking about my grandmother Agnes.
She was Ruth’s older sister.
I barely remembered her.
She had died when I was
very young.
“Your grandmother had two daughters,” Ruth explained. “Your mother, Margaret, and her sister Joyce.”
I nodded.
“Joyce was the charming one,” she continued. “Beautiful, popular, always surrounded by friends.”
My hands became still.
“Margaret was the responsible one. She worked after school and gave her wages to the family. She fixed problems. She helped everyone.”
A strange feeling settled over me.
Ruth watched my face.
“When your mother was ten, Agnes threw her a birthday party.”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“There was a cake with pink frosting roses.”
