KAREN
My father started to tell us stories about Aunt Karen years after she was gone. I guess he was trying to make some sense of things, but those stories wouldn't stay put. They rose up in him like well water until he couldn't do anything but pour them out. The first story he ever told us was waiting for the milkman. She was six years old at the time. Father was seven and already in school. It was early morning and Karen was finishing her breakfast. Eleven chews for each mouthful. No more, no less. Her Momma taught her that. Read it in some Women's magazine, but that's all it took with Karen. It made sense to her and from then on that's what she did. Dad would stand, flex his fingers and stretch to show us how our Aunt moved through the world 25 years before we were born. When her breakfast was done she'd unfold her napkin and dab the milk droplets off her face and her paisley dress then refold the napkin into a perfect square. She would then flip up the table of...