Aunt Camellia is next. She’s about five two with curly white hair that she wears midway down her back. She likes makeup and perfume and her lotions.

My mother is the youngest. She curves. I still see men look at her. She has a welcoming, lopsided smile; her hair is in a bell shape; and her dark brown eyes are huge.

Their mother named them after flowers because she wasn’t quite right in the head.

Every day my mother and aunts wear a hat, but not ordinary hats.

Two walls in our home are filled with the most exquisite, interesting hats. Hats from the twenties, thirties, forties, all the way up. Hats with feathers, ribbons, birds, pom-pom balls, sequins, and beading. Hats made from straw. Hats with wide brims and tight brims. Hats that are two feet high, and hats that hang over an eye. Hats with netting, gauze, lace, satin, and silk. Hats that look like they came off the British Royal family, and hats from Alice in Wonderland and the Kentucky Derby and Dr. Seuss.

Every day they grab a hat, add a few fresh flowers, and head out the door. They are called The Hat Ladies. They love it.

“We heard you almost killed yourself saving a little girl today,” Aunt Iris said. “Shot down the street like a bat out of hell. A stampeding elk. Or a crazy lady, depending on who’s talking about it.”

“Your spirit is always giving,” Aunt Camellia said. “It’s a kaleidoscope of generosity.”

“My spirit is old and tired,” I said.

“Be careful, honey,” my mother said. “Please. You were way too close today.”

“After your mother heard what you did and how close you came to becoming human roadkill,” Aunt Iris said, “she had to go and lay in the back of the shop with a glass of wine or two or more.”

“You should try not to worry your mother like that,” Aunt Camellia said. I heard the reprimand. My mother nodded. “It’s bad for my heart.”

“There is nothing wrong with your heart, Mother.”

“There could be if you don’t stop scaring me.”

“You should apologize to your mother,” Aunt Iris said. “She looked positively white for hours.”

This conversation would have been ludicrous in a normal family. I was supposed to apologize to my mother because she heard I had a close call saving a little girl’s life and this made my mother worry and guzzle wine?

I saw my aunts’ stern expressions. We are not normal. “I’m sorry, Momma.”

“No apology necessary, lovey,” my mother said, patting her heart.

I decided to change the topic. “How was the shop today?”

“Busy,” my mother said. She pulled out the chair beside me at the long wood table my grandfather built. He used to shoot deer, bring it home, and cut it up right here. Fish he caught from the ocean, and the chickens he kept for dinner were fixed up right here, too.

Above us was an oversized chandelier my grandmother bought in one of her not-so-sane moments from a hotel that was shutting down in Seattle. My grandma liked it because it was a “twinkling light for a magical fairy, surely you can see them flying around the crystals?”