Some people describe their childhoods with golden light and laughter. Dinners at the table. Bicycles in the driveway. Stories before bed.
Mine didn’t look like that. Not until Grandma Grace came and changed the script.
My mom, Delia, lived her life chasing bad men and worse instincts. My sister, Cynthia, mirrored her with more eyeliner and sharper words. I was the quiet one. A shadow in the background. A child born into noise but made of silence.
At six, Grandma Grace showed up, packed my small bag, and said, “You’re coming home with me, Tom.”
And she meant it. Home wasn’t a place. It was her.
When she died, I was 26, but I felt six again. Lost. Disoriented. Alone.
At the funeral, I sobbed. Cynthia wore designer black and fake tears. Delia cried the loudest, but only when she had an audience.