I don’t see her very often. When I do, it’s hard to really think of her as a parent. She’s too young, too pretty, too confident and aloof. Like a cool aunt. And that’s the role she’s had in my life in any case.

She’s holding a bouquet in one hand. “Oh, here you are! Glad I didn’t get lost!”

Striding in, Hyacinth Fairmont seems to bring in sunshine with her.

She’s my height, my body type, and my face. Her hair’s a warmer blonde. She assured me it used to be as crazy as mine, but her hairdresser tames it into well behaved curls instead of my cloudy mess.

Back home, I used to braid it. But Keller likes it, and loves to run his fingers through it. I’ve started to keep it loose, and I no longer mind it.

“Oh, Claire, you’re resplendent,” she tells me, giving me a hug, made slightly awkward by the flowers.

She uses words like that, my mother. Resplendent. It’s funny, coming from someone as magnetic as she is.

“You too!” I assure her.

“I guess you had to get it from somewhere, huh?” she says without an ounce of false modesty.

“And I guess I’m just part of the decor,” my grandmother sneers.

“If that were the case, you’d be silent.” Hyacinth snorts. “Hello, Mother. I brought you flowers. Please don’t die on the operating table, I can’t afford a funeral.”

I’ve always half admired, and half been outraged by the way she talks back. After Keller, I just laugh.

Frankly, her presence is a huge and unexpected relief. She’s the object of my grandmother’s constant criticism, so typically, I fade back to the background.

Not today.

“Did you hear what happened? Your daughter left, and not one week later, broke up with her boyfriend and cut off all contact,” my grandmother says.

I never thought I’d see the day I’d be more the focus of her ire than her own daughter.

“Oh, that boy Noah? Good for you! I didn’t like the way he talked to you.”

My grandmother breathes in sharply, and I smile at my mother.

It’s not the first time she’s said so, and before, I dismissed it. He talked to me normally. He paid attention to me, unlike anyone else. Looking back, I know she was right. The constant little jabs about my clothes, my drawing habit, my interests, my hair, putting me down slowly, weren’t how a boyfriend should act. Not how anyone should act, really.

“Noah is a good boy, from a good family—” my grandmother starts.

“You mean, from your parish, with grandparents who show up at mass. In case it’s escaped your notice, Claire, like me, doesn’t share your faith, or your ideas on what’s good for us.”