When I was a child, I lived in Washington, D.C., in a big house with a lot of people. My grandparents were there. My mother and father. My sisters. For a while, even my aunt and her kids. Everyone lived together. It felt like my family went on forever. As a kid, I thought I had more family than I could ever meet. And honestly, it was good. We were close. That was how my grandmother wanted it. My grandmother was the center of everything. She led with what I’d call a stern tenderness. She was loving, but you didn’t argue with her. She knew what she was doing. If you listened to Grandma, things went well. If you didn’t, well—don’t mess with Grandma. She loved us fiercely, and she wanted us together. Always together. Eventually, D.C. started getting dangerous. There were some close calls with crime, enough that my grandparents decided it was time to move. They sold the house, and when I was about five or six years old, we all moved together to Florida. Once we got to Florida, we sett...