I take a bite of my lemon square from Leonard’s, and powdered sugar dissolves like cotton candy in my mouth. It reminds me of lemon cream pie. I remember that’s what won the pie contest at Mema’s church a few years ago. Every year on the first weekend in May, Bethlehem Methodist has a big fish fry and silent auction. And every year they have a Bake-Off and the best pie wins. It’s kind of a big deal: there’s a one-hundred-dollar prize and an awards ceremony, and everyone remembers who won last year and the year before, going all the way back to when the contest first started. I’ve always been stuck at home, still in school and wishing I could be there. I do some basic math—the Bake-Off is a little more than four months from now. I’ll be there and I can finally enter. And I can win. I know I can. Every famous chef has to start somewhere.

“Shoot!” Mom says when a blob of red sauce falls on her pants.

I look down at my wheelchair tray. I forget sometimes that other humans don’t come as well equipped.

“I’ve got a hundred bottles of beer on the wall!”

“Ellie. No.”

I sing louder. We’re in Arkansas now and stuck in traffic outside Conway.

“Take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer on the waaaaaaaall.”

“Ellie, I will pull this car over right this minute if you don’t stop that.”

“Niiiiinety-nine bottles of beer on the—”

“All right. If you don’t like my choice of music, you can pick the station.”

“Anything but country.”

“We live in the country music capital of the world!”

“Not anymore,” I say, and catch her eye in the mirror. I shoot her a thumbs-up.

“Not anymore,” she says, and smiles and spins the dial.

Two years ago, when we were driving to Eufaula for Christmas, the van broke down in the middle of nowhere. It was snowing. Mom’s cell phone died. It’s the one and only time I’ve ever heard her curse. She made up for it that day, though… aaaall the four-letter words. I don’t think she knew I could hear. But she was standing in the gravel, kicking at the tire and yelling expletives for all she was worth.