unraveling my grandmother

Recently, I've become interested in family history. I wanted to understand what made my grandmother the woman she's become. And so I've been learning...

Here are some of the facts (all the names have been changed, per my grandmother's request):

My grandmother June was born in New York in 1915 to Eli, a self-made immigrant tailor who made uniforms for the US navy and his wife Rosie, the charm of parties around Manhattan. June was their only child: a nice Jewish girl, her parents the emobidiment of the American dream, or so it seemed.

Starting when she was 16, June was forced to buy heroin for her uncle Edgar, an addict since his own late teenage years. Every month, they'd send her to buy "the stuff": in Harlem, in Tijuana, in Inglewood, whichever dealer was nearest to them at the time. Sometimes, when they were in New York, she'd drive Edgar and the transaction would happen in the back seat of the car. "I could have been caught right there," she told me. "If anyone had driven by they would have seen," him buying "the stuff", then shooting it up.

Sometimes, when they were in Los Angeles, she'd be sent down to Tijuana with an aunt, Mimi. "She was beautiful," June told me. "And daring. And you had to watch your purse when she was around."