Chapter 30: Aunt Jessie, In the Flesh
The resemblance between the woman in the driver’s seat beside me and my dead aunt is so uncanny that I can’t look at Jessie straight on. Instead I stick with glimpses from the corner of my eye, little peeks at her hair, her earrings, the collar of her shirt—never her face, or her hands on the steering wheel, I can’t bring myself to really see that part of her. She’s not much younger than any of my other aunts but like Evie, her skin is unlined and pliant despite her age, she has the same wide mouth, the same pouty lips. Eyes, too—it’s like looking back through the years and peering into every memory I have of my great-aunt. Jessie is thinner than Evie was, but she has the same hips, the same height, the same hair, for Christ’s sake. My fingers crumple
