Mormor was at the sink washing dishes when I came home. She had a dishwasher, she just didn’t feel like it got the dishes clean enough, so she’d run the dishes through a dishwasher cycle and then spend an hour hand-washing them, too. I had no idea what the point of the first cycle was, and when I asked her about it, she hissed at me like a cat and kicked me out of the kitchen.

Mormor was particular. I chalked it up to her personal flavor of weird.

“No one punched me.”

“Then what is it? You’re upset. It’s not good for the baby. Sit.” She turned off the sink, dried her hands and went to the bread box in the corner. I watched her, irritated and sullen and refusing to talk, but then she produced the pepparkakor—Swedish ginger cookies. They were a common Christmas cookie, but Mormor tended to make them year round. Both I and fetus perked up. I reached for the plate before she even peeled the Saran wrap back, snatching a cookie and cramming it into my maw. She left me to my feeding so she could put on the electric kettle, producing two cups of tea just a minute later.

I doctored mine. She stirred hers. Staring.

Ever-staring Mormor. Like one of those lizards that only blinks once every two minutes.

“The kids found out,” I finally managed. To reward myself for conversing like a human, I grabbed another cookie.

“Ah.” She nodded. “Yes, that would be hard.”

“One of my new friends told them. Well, told one person, who then probably told one person. I’m thinking they’re not my friends anymore.”

“That’s too bad, but I understand why. It wasn’t their business to tell. Were the kids terrible to you?”

“Not directly? They just looked at me a lot. One girl tried to get me to talk about it.” I sipped my tea, my free hand going to my temple, which had started to pound. “I talked to Mrs. Wong at lunch. She told me I didn’t have to tell anyone and then tried again to get me to go to some weekend program with other knocked-up teens. I’m like, ‘no, thanks.’”

Mormor peered at me over the rim of her teacup. “Oh? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

And I didn’t, really, beyond my gut saying that it was a waste of time. I had Mom and Mormor. I had Devi. It was something I’d have to wake up for on my precious sleep-in Saturdays. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It was a whole long list of etceteras, none of the excuses really holding much water and boiling down to a toxic case of “dunwanna.”

Mormor knew it, too.

“I’m going to tell you a story about my grandmother, your great-great-grandmother, Astridh, the woman I named your mother after,” she said.