When I pressed it against my face, I noticed a faint scent.
Lavender.
My mother had kept small sachets of dried lavender in her dresser drawers. The smell had followed her everywhere.
Suddenly, I was no longer sitting alone in my house.
I was eight years old again, waking from a nightmare and crawling into my mother’s bed.
I was sixteen, crying after my first heartbreak while she wrapped that shawl around both of us.
I was thirty, sitting beside her in the hospital cafeteria after my grandmother’s surgery.
The memories came so quickly that they nearly overwhelmed me.
My grandmother, Eleanor, had been a difficult woman.
She was wealthy, proud, and famously stubborn.
She had inherited several properties from her father, invested wisely, and spent most of her life guarding her money as fiercely as other people guarded their children.
She argued with everyone.
She stopped speaking to relatives over minor disagreements.
She disapproved of nearly every decision her children made.
By the end of her life, most of the family had distanced themselves from her.
Lila visited only around holidays, usually when she wanted something.
