AUNTIE HAZEL WAS THE greatest cook on the planet, as far as Lana was concerned. Emily didn’t seem to agree, but that’s only because she’d been raised on her mother’s home cookin’. She didn’t know what it was like to have a mom who burned Pop Tarts and thought “homemade” meant anything you microwaved yourself.
After dinner, the whole family watched TV together and talked through half the show, but Lana didn’t mind. It was nice to be in a house full of laughter instead of an apartment where you kept the radio on in the background just to feel like you weren’t so alone. Even when Lana’s mother was home, the two of them weren’t really interacting. They had their own lives, their own worlds.
With Auntie Hazel and Uncle Ralph, she really felt like she was part of a family.
Before bed, Un
