Request #631 From LaurenE

My request is about a book I read in 6th grade, which would have been sometime in 1991-1992, about a teen girl whose name I do not recall, but she had an aunt named Barbara who she went to stay with for the summer. Barbara was older, and a widow who never had children, and I remember that she was very frugal, keeping the same clothes for years at a time. However, she did like to splurge on new cars, I even remember the quote, “the only thing Aunt Barbara spent serious money on was cars”, or something like that. The girl and Barbara become close over the summer, and the girl tells her aunt about the SA (or maybe an attempted one) that she’d survived. Aunt Barbara was the first person she’d ever told about it. I don’t remember much else about the plot, but I remember that Barbara dies towards the end of the book, and that the girl thinks it would be nice if Barbara and her late husband are reunited in Heaven. I don’t remember who the author was, I think it was a female author but I’m not 100% sure. I don’t know if this sounds familiar to anyone else but I thought I’d give it a try.