Mormor was in the garden. This wasn’t surprising; the woman liked vegetables a whole lot more than she liked most people, and she spent any and all sunny days out digging in dirt. She wore a short-sleeved button-down shirt with loud orange flowers on it and a pair of khaki shorts. Her steel gray hair was tucked up under a wide-brimmed bonnet-type hat. Green gloves protected her hands from whatever noxious concoction she was slopping on her plants. I had my guesses, none of them were pleasant, but there she was, reaching into a bucket, producing a brown gritty mess and tucking it onto the roots of her vegetables.

She never lifted her head when we approached.

“Hi, Ma.” Mom stepped up to the edge of a row of squash, her arms across her chest, sunglasses perched on the end of her nose. Her spine was so straight it could have been made of metal.

“There’s a basket by the hose,” Mormor said in greeting, her English laced with a hint of Swedish accent.

“I see it.”

“Good. Pick the zucchini. Most people call before they show up, Astrid.” Mormor lifted her face. She and Mom looked a whole lot alike with their pale eyes and pale hair and long noses. They also had the same this-is-a-load-of-crap face, which they were both wearing, with the curled lip and the crinkles in the nose. Mom broke first, though, because she always did, muttering under her breath as she grabbed the basket and stooped to snap zucchinis off the vine.

“It was important enough to just come over, Ma,” my mom said, crouching down and reaching in beneath all the verdant green. She snarled as one of the leaves whacked her in the face. Mormor snorted and turned her laser-beam stare my way.

“What’s wrong? Did someone die? Come here, let me look at you.” Mormor stood up, brushing her knees free of garden dirt as she walked my way. She pulled off her rubber gloves and reached for my face, cupping my chin and turning it left and right, like she was examining a horse.

“I’m fine. No one died,” I managed.

“Mmm. Swedish skin. You’re freckling. Too bad you didn’t get your father’s coloring. He might have been an asshole, but he was a handsome asshole. Browned up like a chicken nugget.” She took the hat off her own head and plopped it on mine.

“That’s a little racist, Mormor. Comparing people to food?”

She ignored me, because that’s just what she did, pulling me in tight for a spine-crushing hug. “Let’s get you some lemonade. Your mother will join us when she’s done.”

“I... Okay,” I said, being lovingly dragged toward the front porch. Mormor patted my shoulder and glanced back at my mother.

“Have you eaten yet, Astrid?”

From beneath a monster zucchini bush: “No, Ma.”