Dear Mrs. Julia Child,

Google just told me you are no longer alive, but I had it in my mind to write you a thank-you, and so I’m going to do it anyway, because I need something to do with my hands.

I am writing to thank you for your recipe for piecrust. I found it in my mom’s copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. At first my grandma said French cooking was too snooty, but when she found out it had shortening in it, she said, “Anything that uses Crisco is okay by me.”

Somebody close to me told me that if I was going to make a prizewinning pie, I had to pick something that spoke to me.

The problem is a lot of things speak to me. I like fancy French food and also biscuits and gravy and chocolate-dipped cones from Dairy Queen and miniature golf and sudoku (thanks to my grandma).

So I decided to make a pie that would speak to every part of me. I used your crust because it’s nice and sweet and a little fancy, and I used blackberries my grandma and I picked from her garden and canned last summer, because it’s still spring here and I thought people would like a taste of what’s ahead. And I glazed it all in lemon because lemon is my grandpa’s favorite and I wanted to make him smile.

So I guess this is a letter to my family, too, for helping me make the best blackberry lemon pie in the whole of Eufaula. I can say that for real because I have a blue ribbon and a hundred-dollar grocery certificate to prove it.

Many thanks,

Ellie

It’s too dark in this room. I don’t know why it always has to be too dark or too bright or too cold or too hot. But I guess you don’t come to the hospital for a good night’s sleep.

Mom and Mema are down in the family room meeting with the doctors. I told them I’d keep an eye on Grandpa. Not that he’s going anywhere. I can hear his breathing, steady and calm, and that makes me calm. I’ve never been in this position before—the visitor in the hospital.

After we got to the ER, the paramedics said I was a hero. They said if I hadn’t busted open that garage door, it could have been much worse. They didn’t say worse how. They didn’t need to.

I lay my head on Grandpa’s knee and shut my eyes. My hands itch where the nurse bandaged up the cuts. It feels like a lifetime and a day since baking in the kitchen this morning with Coralee.

I feel a hand on my head.

“Hey, stop that crying now.”