I sit in the living room of my grandmother’s bungalow in Kent, England, a stone’s throw away from the Dover Cliffs, where we spent the afternoon drinking tea in the National Trust gift shop while watching the ferries come into the harbor in pouring rain.
My girls are asleep, tucked up in the coveted “fluffy beds” I slept in every time I visited as a child. I stretch my legs out next to the gas stove, lit to ward off the chilly November evening. My grandmother, now 86 but every bit as full of life as I’ve always remembered her, sits on the couch. We’re both half listening to the documentary on television about the new King Charles as we flip through the bulky, spiral-bound book sprawled open on my lap.
