“Why the hair?”

And my mother — who has never once given me a straight answer about herself, who stood on my porch and told me the pantry story only in order to spend it — looked at the bird feeder and said:

“It was the only thing she never measured.”

I put my hand over my mouth.

“She weighed me Mondays.

She graded posture and skin at the table, out loud, with your aunt sitting right there getting the worse half of it.”