“You didn’t even measure it,” I say.

“Measure, shmeasure. I’ve been doing this long enough, I don’t need a number to tell me if it’s right.”

Her gray hair is up in a braid as usual and then twirled in a bun. She looks like the grandmother in a fairy tale. Except her sweatshirt has a drunken Santa on it with Christmas lights that flash. It says GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY in big capital letters.

I roll over to the table and stir. Everything in this kitchen is yellow. The table, the chairs, the curtains, the rug. Even the floor, cracked plastic tile, is kind of yellow. I love it. It’s like sitting on the sun.

Mom perches on a barstool, also yellow, across the counter in the “dining room.” This place is so small, every room just runs into the next.

“Dad!” she says when Grandpa walks in, still buttoning his shirt. She jumps up and gives him a gentle hug, the kind you’d give a kitten. His hair is wet and combed, and there are pleats in his pants. Standing alongside him, Mom looks like the crazy one, in her sweater and nightgown and troll hair. Except for the fat bandage across his nose, Grandpa looks almost dapper.

He comes over to me and squats.

“How’s my little lady doing, hey?”

Up close, though, I can see the burns on his face and arms from the airbag. It looks like a really bad rash, and now I, too, want to hug him like he’s a kitten.

“I’m good, Grandpa. Real good.”

“That thing holding up okay?” he says, and pats the armrest on my chair. He always talks about it like it’s a car or a horse.

“Yeah, it’s good. Mom just let me take the stabilizers off. Want to see?”

I pull back from the table and rock backward so my feet are up in the air. It’s not for more than a few seconds, but Mom and Mema gasp like I’m about to drop a tray of dishes.

“Ellie, that is not why we took those extra wheels off the back!” Mom says, and I drop down again.

“Honey, do not be doing tricks in my kitchen,” Mema says, and swats me with a towel.

“You two stop fussing over her.”

“Thanks, Grandpa.”

“Here.” Mema hands me the buttermilk to stir into the batter. Biscuits on my first morning beats dry cereal any day.

Grandpa walks back toward the bedroom again, still fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, and Mom leans against the counter and crosses her arms.

“He seems okay this morning,” she says.