But although her culinary plans are running smoothly, my mother’s mood is lethal. Look closely and you can see thin plumes of smoke escaping from her mouth and the tips of two horns peeping between the rollers on top of her head. This is not uncommon for

She wanted a hammer of her own. She and Fritzi could sit there with their hammers and see the whole wide and lonely world from there: Aunt Bernice, the penned-up sows and broken down buildings, Jerry and Elizabeth, and her brothers, and farther away, Pete

From downstairs, the smell of meat cooking wafts through the rungs of the banisters. Mam's bustles about; whacking a chunk of dough with the rolling pin. I'd rather she beat the dough than the backs of my legs, which is often the punishment for refusing t