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Mother

Wants

You

To

Stay

Stupid

Find

Your

Notes

So

You

Can

Be

Yourself

Find

The

Paper

Flowers

Trust

Only

Your

Own

Hand

Writing

I looked up. “You knew?”

“Not right away. I rarely open these books. But after one of her bad seizures, I pulled them out. Thought she’d like to read them again, since she loved them the first time.”

“And you found this.”

“I was shocked. I confronted her mother.” Grandma Flowers rested her hands on the table, her brown fingers tightly locked together like a fervent prayer. “I shouldn’t have. She cut me off, forbade Ava from seeing me.”

“But you were right next door.”

“She had a good grip on that girl. The next time I saw her, she didn’t even know who I was.”