“Why didn’t you teach me to cook? Why didn’t you let me take care of Salt? Why did you—why did you have to leave when we—when we need you the most? When I need you? You promised me you’d be with me. You promised me! So why tell Mom to sell Salt? Why did you give up on us? Why?”

I hide my face behind my hands to smother my yelling.

“Don’t be so hard on your grandmother,” a voice says gently behind me. I was crying so hard I didn’t realize someone else was here. When I turn, a figure is silhouetted against the setting sun. I squint, trying to make out their face.

And then I quickly push myself to my feet so Seu Romário isn’t towering over me. Without Mom by my side, I don’t know what to do. I want to run. Last time I saw him, he was yelling awful things at Pedro. My heart races in fear.

“Maybe in the end she felt that closing Salt was the best for you and your mother,” he says. “A chance to restart without her.”

He motions closer to the grave, and I realize he’s holding a bouquet of sunflowers just like mine.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, but he just smiles sadly and replaces the old sunflowers with the new bouquet he’s brought. “You don’t know Grandma like this! You’re her enemy! How do you know sunflowers are her favorite?!”

He doesn’t give me an answer. He just busies himself with the flowers, trying to arrange them neatly so they’re not blocking Grandma’s name. I wait in silence, trembling with nerves.

“When she got sick,” he says at last, “I went to see her at the hospital.”

I take a step back, dread filling my chest just at the thought of this man showing up in the infirmary room. “You had no right! What did you say to her? Did you hurt her?”

His eyes widen. “Larissa, no. No. I had to see her... I couldn’t find the strength to tell her how sorry I felt... I couldn’t... I couldn’t speak... But I think she knew. I... I tell myself that she understood... And she... She confided in me. She told me about Salt. About the finances going bad. And she said she was going to tell Alice to sell the bakery. She was going to tell Alice to let go... To start a new life with you where you both were free.”

Those are Mom’s words, too. Could it be true, that Grandma confided in him? No, Grandma would never have. She didn’t trust him.

But then again, the Grandma I knew also wouldn’t have told Mom to sell Salt.

Now I’m not so sure whether I truly understood her at all.

I don’t know what to believe.