For as long as I can remember, we were a trio—me, my older brother Kyle, and Grandma Isabel, the unofficial mayor of our neighborhood with her crooked porch swing and bowl of peppermint candy that never seemed to empty. Everyone called her “Miss Isabel,” like she’d earned the title through kindness alone. After our parents died in a car crash, she raised us. I was just two, Kyle nine. He never quite came back from that loss. Grandma used to say anger made a home in him early, like a vine curling through his chest. He was loud, reckless, slammed...
Continues…