Chapter 11When I walk out onto the porch, Aunt Marion is sitting at her easel, painting. She has a photo attached to the easel’s edge with a clothespin. It’s a snapshot of our beach house. On the front porch, two little girls sit with ice cream cones and huge smiles on their faces. I know without asking the girls are Mom and Aunt Marion. You can tell by the clothes they’re wearing it was taken not long after grandpa bought the beach house in the mid-eighties. Mom and Aunt Marion are each wearing T-shirts and fuzzy leggings in bright neon colors over black tights. Their hair is held in pigtails by bright yellow scrunchies. But Aunt Marion’s painting is muted, mostly sepia colored. By simply changing the color, Aunt Marion’s painting emphasizes just the two girls. How close they are. How the
