In the story, A Christmas Memory, what is Buddy's relationship with his friend?

Despite his youth, Buddy understands that even though his friend is in her sixties, "She is still a child." He lives with relatives in "a spreading old house in a country town," but he and his cousin manage to remain somewhat separate from them, "We are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best Mend," he says. By recognizing this, Buddy reveals his compassion for society's outsiders, as his cousin is considered. Every Saturday she gives him a dime and he goes to the movies, which influences his decision to be a tap dancer when he grows up. Because his friend never goes to movies, Buddy tells her about them, thus honing his storytelling skills. Later, when he recounts mat he has been sent to military school, the sensitive narrator breaks the nostalgic mood of the story and provides its bittersweet resolution: "home is where my friend is, and there I never go."