After my 18th birthday, I bought my first a car. One of the first things I did was go back to the city where my mother and I had lived to talk to another of her closest friends. This woman, whom I referred to as Aunt Katie, was old enough to be my mother’s mother. Katie was a neighbor to whom my mother would turn when she and my grandmother were fighting. As such, Katie was no friend to my grandmother, but my mother adored her all the same. As a child, I spent more time at Aunt Katie’s house tha...