Chapter 2: The Settled

The One Who Leaves: A Memoir

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Grandma stood at the top of the driveway when we pulled onto Smoke Tree in the tangerine dark. She wore sequin-lined sandals and a leopard print blouse. With her eyelids painted purple and her curled blonde hair, she appeared too dolled up for the dust. But Grandma loves the desert because she can wear open-toed shoes year-round and doesn’t have to worry about rain messing up her hair. Grandma was born and raised in Belgium, but ever since I was a kid, she’s always said—in her thick French accent—that the desert is her home.

I’d barely shut the car door before she had her arms around me. “My beautiful granddaughter.” She gripped at my faded denim jacket that had motor oil stains on the sleeves from whoever owned it before me. I kissed her on the cheek and she melted into me as if her legs couldn’t hold her. She smelled like hairspray and the Christian Dior perfume I’d gotten her for Christmas.

“Where’s Mom?”

She looked up at me, her mascara a muddy mess.