"How's the summer house coming along?" I asked as we ate at the kitchen table. The kitchen had always been the hub of Gran's household. It wasn't a modern design like the Kavanaghs' kitchen with its hard, cold edges and shiny appliances. It was homely with wooden bench tops sporting cuts here and there, each one with a story behind it. There was the time I cut into a teacake without using a board because I'd gotten annoyed at being told to serve the teacake when I preferred to be sketching, and the time Lyle sliced off the tip of his finger when cutting an apple.
Gran had cooked brownies and cakes in that kitchen for decades, even after she'd begun to go blind. I helped when her sight disappeared altogether, following the recipes passed down from her grandmother and written in neat, small
