In Bulpitt, all the important rules of etiquette were bewilderingly reversed: my cousins laughed when I ate French fries with a fork, and they expressed great suspicion when, after drinking, I failed to leave a Kool-Aid mustache encircling my lips. Despite the fact that my Grandma shared daily life with my other cousins, she evidenced no distance or awkwardness with me or with my sisters when she’d see us again after years apart. She looked at me with exactly the same frank gaze of affectionate familiarity that she used with all my other cousins. She clung to memories of our times together and brought out these stories, to chuckle endlessly over them when we would return to her kitchen table; for example: “Remember that time you were frying eggs, Suzy, and one slipped over the lip of the pan below the burner of my stove?!” Then she mimicked the sound that an escaping egg might make: “Fwwiipppp! How I laughed when I pulled out the drawer to clean and discovered that one perfect egg, all shiny – and – UNBROKEN!” And she’d dissolve into more gales of laughter. Though I had failed to report the egg’s fall to her, she did not view this as a mark against me, or worthy of any reproach.