Jesse talked for about twenty minutes. But to me it felt like twenty years of talking, and those years went by right here in our kitchen, where outside the dandelions were already blooming in the yard and soon the lilacs would join them. My grandparents would sit beneath those lilacs, happy once more to feel the first spring warmth. And toddlers might play in a sandpit at their feet, and the birds would take sand baths. But I had no time for that spring. I had to grow up fast, faster than the words flowing from Jesse’s mouth. And I had to be brave to hear out her story.
