Daisy zoomed in and handed it back. Grandma squinted at the picture and then her face lit up.
‘Oh, my! Well, that’s my daddy there. Look how young he looks! My goodness!’
Daisy smiled at her grandmother’s delight. She was fully made up today like she always was whenever she left the house. Her favorite string of pearls adorned her neck, and she’d recently gotten her hair done in her signature, platinum blonde. She looked lovely. Daisy, in contrast, looked (and felt) like an emo teenager, in her black hoodie and black jeans. All she needed was some dark eyeliner, and she’d be all set.
It was possible she needed a new look.
‘What year was this?’ her grandma asked, still studying the picture.
‘The caption says nineteen-twenty-seven.’
‘Incredible,’ Grandma breathed. ‘And there’s my mother next to him.’
‘Was she a Daisy, too?’
‘Oh, no. The name comes from my father’s side. My mother’s name was Lydia, and my goodness, was she a stern woman.’
‘Really?’ Daisy couldn’t imagine any woman in her family being stern. Her mother and grandmother had always been fun and silly. Growing up, Daisy’s life hadbeen filled with plenty of after-hours dance parties, giggling with her grandma until chocolate milk came out of her nose, and giving her mom more atrocious ‘makeovers’ than that woman deserved.
She’d somehow forgotten about all of that lately. She’d let herself get bogged down by her failed relationships with men and had forgotten the beautiful relationships she had with her family.
‘Yes, very. She had high standards and she was hard to please, but she loved me in her own way.’ Grandma June looked up with a smile. ‘She was young in this photo. Must have been barely nineteen.’
‘And they were already married?’
‘Oh, yes. It was a different time, of course.’ Grandma sipped her coffee placidly while Daisy thought of her failed first marriage. Maybe teenagers were more mature back then. As much as she’d cried over her marriage to her first love the other night, she knew it never would have worked out. She’d gotten over Matthew a long time ago. It was only the second failure with David that had brought all those memories back up again.
‘And who’s this?’ Daisy asked, pointing to the one person in the photo she was most interested in.
‘That’s my Aunt Daisy! Daddy’s sister. She never had any children, so the name passed on to me.’
‘And what happened to her?’
Grandma shrugged. ‘She lived and died like the rest of them.’
‘Yeah, but why does she look so sad? Did something particularly tragic happen to her?’
Grandma was looking at the phone again. ‘I guess she does look sad.’ She shrugged again. ‘She was in her thirties by the time I was born, and I was just a child, so I don’t really know. I guess she was always rather somber. Wore a lot of black. I remember that.’ She pointed at Daisy with alaugh. ‘Just like you!’
Daisy frowned and snatched the phone back. ‘That’s it? That’s all you remember about her? She didn’t get accused of witchcraft by the townsfolk or anything?’
‘Daisy, it was the nineteen-twenties. No, she didn’t get accused of witchcraft.’ Grandma shook her head. ‘You really should have paid more attention in history class, dear.’
‘Well,somethingmust have happened to her.’ Maybe Daisy was losing her mind or having too many bad dreams, but her Great-Aunt Daisy had become an oversized tragic figure in her imagination. And the fact that they looked alike wasn’t helping. It was like if she could figure out what was wrong with her aunt, then maybe she could figure out a fix for her own problems, too.
‘She ran the shop with my dad. I know that. And I know she never married or had children, which I suppose would have been hard on her as a woman in that time. But that’s all I know.’ Grandma patted Daisy’s hand. ‘Sorry, love. Wish I could tell you more but it’s all so long ago.’
Daisy sighed. ‘That’s okay, Grandma. Thanks anyway.’
‘Now, where’s that cute waiter? I could use some more coffee.’ Grandma June looked around the diner, ready to flag someone down to refill her cup.
‘You mean Archer? He’s the chef not a waiter.’
Her grandmother scoffed. ‘This is a diner, sweetie. He’s not a chef anymore.’
Daisy laughed. ‘Don’t let him hear you say that.’
‘There he is!’ Grandma waved to Archer, who had just emerged from the kitchen with baby Owen strapped to his chest in a baby carrier.
