Grandma's Notebooks
When Olivia was ten, she went to visit her grandmother by herself. Her parents took her to the station and Olivia boarded the train alone, bags filled with games and snacks and books, over-prepared for the six-hour trip. She had enough activities to last her at least a week, but she spent most of the time looking out the window as the train sped through the countryside towards the small, rural town where her grandmother lived. Parts of the forests the train passed through were still sprinkled in snow, but there were hints of spring in the buds that grew on the trees and the groupings of crocuses that spotted the ground, which were just a passing blur of purple to Olivia. With a stack of discs for her Walkman, filled with songs to daydream to, she pictured herself with Grandma already — one whole week, just the two of them.