I didn’t exactly want to hear a story about great-great-grandmother Astridh at that moment but the presence of pepparkakor said I could be bought. “Okay.”

“Your great-great-great-grandmother, Elsa, got pregnant by a local boy. This was before people had safe choices about babies. She had the illegitimate baby—Astridh—and lived at home until she met her husband at twenty. He was good to her, but not to Astridh. He didn’t want her. The only children he was interested in were the ones he fathered.”

She reached for a cookie, probably because she could see her cookie-less future if she let the preggo keep noshing on the baked goods.

She nibbled thoughtfully. “It was not easy for Astridh growing up in a house like that and it never got easier, so when her stepfather offered her a one-way ticket to the United States, she took it.” Mormor paused. “She was fourteen years old.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “...wait. You mean by herself?”

Mormor nodded. “Mmm. She was desperate to get away from a family that didn’t want her, and they were desperate to be rid of her, so she got on a boat and immigrated. There were Swedish colonies in Maine, and opportunities for work. Astridh found housing with some other young women and worked at a shoe factory until she met and married my grandfather.”

Mormor had never talked about any of that, and my initial disinterest gave way to a tremendous amount of respect for a woman I’d never gotten the chance to meet. “Wow, great-grandma times a billion was badass.”

Mormor’s lips twitched. “Yes, she was. Now then, why would I tell you about her now? You’re a smart girl. Be smart for me.”

“Because she was fearless and I should be fearless?” Admittedly, it was more a question than an answer, but after the day I’d had, I wasn’t super willing to play games with Mormor. I didn’t have a lot of gas left in my care tank.

“Not quite.” Mormor shook her head. “She was terrified, and rightfully so. New place, new people. They didn’t send her with money or valuables. She showed up to this country with the clothes on her back. No, the reason I tell you this is she got through her ordeal because of her community. She found her people. They took her in when she came here. They housed her, fed her, clothed her, found her work. They were the only people who understood what she’d gone through and what she’d need to prosper here.”

Mormor looked at me pointedly.

I looked down at my cookie.

“I have you and Mom. And Devi,” I said. I sounded petulant. My bottom lip was probably so pouty it protruded six feet from my face.

Mormor was unmoved.