As soon as school ended for the summer, Anna traveled from her home in America to visit her grandmother in Sweden. She called her grandmother mormor, mother’s mother in the Swedish language. 

 

She and her grandmother spent their summer on the Swedish coast, in a cottage surrounded by stone walls and pines.  

 

Each morning when Anna awoke, a wash basin stood on a wooden stool by a lilac shrub at the edge of the lawn. Anna took her towel and toothbrush and walked barefoot across the grass. The blades tickled her soles and the air smelled of seaweed, roses, and pine.