Translations:Chapter One Trey/6/en

Gami had grown up in rural Washington, in the railroad town of Enumclaw. It’s less than fifty miles from Seattle, but it was a world away in 1902, the year she was born. Her dad worked as a railroad telegraph operator and her mother, Ida Thompson—we called her Lala—would eventually earn a modest income by baking cakes and selling war bonds at the local lumber mill. Lala also played a lot of bridge. Her partners and opponents were the society people in town, the wives of bankers and the owner of the mill. These people may have had more money or higher social standing, but Lala leveled some of the difference by handily beating them at cards. This talent got passed on to Gami and to a degree to my mom, her only child.