That is how friends and family often spoke of Ma—before and after the Ferris wheel.

“The Ferris wheel didn’t make me mean—people did,” Ma said as she lifted bubbling hot pieces of chicken from the grease. She braced herself for a scorching splash if one should fall, though thirty years of frying chicken had perfected the careful wrist twist I still occasionally fumbled.

“Mama and Daddy made us mean long before other people stepped into the picture,” Jewel countered. “Shivana, you’d get pretty mean if you were holed up all the time in the house with a Bible and a broom.”

Before I could smile, Ma had started to put me down.

“She’s about to be holed up in the house with a Bible and belt,” she said. “She’s got just as fast…”

“Oh Annette don’t tell me you’re still whipping this child.” Jewel stood up and grabbed me. “She’s grown!”

I hated being regarded a minor by the one relative whose opinion actually counted, but it had been so long since I had been held tight by anybody. I wanted to melt into a puddle Jewel could scoop into one of her perfume bottles. She could take me on her journeys, release tiny sprays of my spirit into the sky above places I had only seen in the movies.

“Don’t spare the rod,” was all Ma offered. Jewel sat back down in the kitchen chair whose pleather seat was peeling. She specialized in changing subjects.

“So, Shivana, what you doing in school this year?”

I couldn’t say fending off bullies, waiting on books, and feeling sorry for the teachers.

“This year I got biology, English, world history, physical science, gym, and study hall,” was all I told her.

“Gym?!? Study hall?!? What about drama, art, pottery, music?”

Jewel’s eyes bucked and her voice screeched when she got excited. Ma turned around as fast as if she was going to slap me; she always said I was Jewel growing up all over again. No wonder we couldn’t get along, because she and Jewel never had.

“Now Jewel, you know they done cut all that out of these schools,” Ma said.

“How could they?” She was back on her feet with her arms flailing. “It’s what our kids need. Things have gotten even worse than they were back in our day!”

“I was in the choir all last year, remember?” I asked, remembering how much I had loved to go to music. I took over Ma’s seat; my forehead was sweating and the back of my tongue suddenly tasted salty.

“Of course I remember—I drove five hundred miles for your Christmas concert. Do you remember?”