Magnolia INT.—GRANDMA GRACE’S HOME—MIRAMAR, FLORIDA—EARLY EVENING New Year’s Day 2009 A homemade milk-chocolate cake with a rainbow menagerie of Happy Birthday candles sat on the white-tile kitchen counter in a crystal cake server. The new morning of the new year had transformed into very early evening. Half past six to be exact, on a Friday. The leftover sun was soon to disappear. “There are good men out there, now Magnolia. Not every man is going to cheat on you.” Magnolia’s seventy-two-year-old grandmother wore wisdom on her oval face like a tattoo. She looked at least thirteen years younger. With her slender frame and straight-from-the-bottle, saucy beige hair color, she was attractive. And her mind was sharp as a tack. Magnolia called her Gigi, short for Grandma Grace. Widowed, Gigi lived alone in her home in Broward County in a rundown neighborhood that statistically was considered a high crime area, but years ago it was the complete opposite, much more upscale.
