My Aunt Ann, and the house that held us all

When I began shaping Laurel’s story, there was one character who came from real life more than any other. I even kept her name. Laurel grew up with her Aunt Ann, the woman who stepped in when Laurel’s parents couldn’t care for her. Together they figured out how to build a life, and it was Aunt Ann who pushed her to look beyond the boundaries of their small town and imagine something bigger for herself.

I had an Aunt Ann, too, and I loved her dearly. She was my grandmother’s sister, though she always felt more like an extra grandmother than an aunt. Her small house sat on the edge of our town, right across from the grocery store. When she was cooking and realized she needed one more ingredient, she would hand me a few dollars and send me across the street—something I felt very important doing. It was also the same store she sent me to for her cigarettes, though she would stand on the porch and wave enthusiastically whenever the clerk glanced out the window, just to reassure them I wasn’t trying to buy them for myself.

In Laurel’s story, Aunt Ann is a baker. My Aunt Ann was a cook, not a baker, but her pancakes were legendary. She had this enormous cast iron pan and would drop thick pats of butter into it so generously that the edges of the pancakes turned into crispy, golden bites. We drenched them in syrup and devoured them. I’ve never been able to recreate them, no matter how hard I try.

She was also famous—at least in our family—for her spaghetti. Every Sunday night, we went to her house, where she had spent most of the day simmering her sauce from scratch. I’ll admit I’ve never been a big spaghetti person, but that didn’t matter. Sitting at her table, surrounded by her warmth, listening to her laugh—that was what I went for. When she found something truly funny, she laughed with her whole body. I can still hear it, can still picture the tears rolling down her cheeks as she tried to catch her breath.

Aunt Ann never had children of her own, but the number of children who passed through that house would be impossible to count—nieces and nephews, friends, neighbors, stepchildren and their children, all of whom might as well have been her own grandchildren. It was the home she lived in for more than forty years, and it’s the place where my lifelong friendship with one of my closest friends began, back when my grandmother and my aunt would babysit us as infants. A house lived in for that long collects stories: first breaths and last ones, arguments and celebrations, sorrow and joy. All the things that make us who we are. I miss her deeply, and I wish she could have met all my children and grandchildren.

Getting to know Laurel’s Aunt Ann—this fictional echo of someone I loved—has been one of my favorite parts of writing her story. I’m still learning who she is, still letting her reveal herself to me. But I know this much: she is generous, funny, loving, and cherished by those around her. A tribute, in many ways, to the woman who helped shape my own life.