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RogerDodger
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Corn
I remember the smell. It was the smell of hot corn, fresh from the pot, and the smell of butter and salt.
My older sister loved corn. Crazy about it, I should say. Every Saturday, when she came back from the market, she’d bring back with her a giant bag of produce--cabbages, apples, carrots, and more than anything else, corn. Corn of all sorts, too. She got white corn, yellow corn, brown and black corn, corns I’d never seen before. After sorting everything into the pantry, she’d go straight to the kitchen and boil or pop the corn. We never ran out of corn through any season.
I remember how she cooked it, too. She had a bit of a routine, a ritual. First, she’d sing or hum a tune our mother taught to her when she was young. I don’t remember the words to that song, but given how she’d alternate between humming the melody and singing the lyrics, I don’t think she did, either. As she half-sang and half-hummed, she’d fill a large pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. Afterwards, she’d peel the husks off the ears one by one, shucking the waste into a small bin on the counter. She did a bit of a pirouette as she turned from the stove to the sink, and the hem of her skirt twirled as elegantly as a skirt that was more patches than cloth could twirl.
Then--and around here, she usually got the song’s chorus, if I could call it that--she’d begin washing off dirt and the thread-like plant material that still stuck to the kernels. She scrubbed the ears rather hard, but not hard enough to damage the kernels. I once asked her why she didn’t just be more careful when she pulled off the husk. She told me that this was faster, and she went to scrubbing with her efforts redoubled. She’d always hold the ear in her left front hoof and scrub with her right, even though she was left-hoofed, and she’d always scrub up and down the length of the corn. Finally, every five ears she cleaned, and she always cooked ears in sets of five, she’d put them pointy-side first into the now-boiling water.
I myself didn’t share her passion for corn, but it made her happy. I suppose that that in turn, seeing her happy made me happy as well. I remember way she’d smile at me as she put the fresh and steaming corn on our dining table.
It’s one of the few things I still remember about her.
It’s spring, now, and the remains of winter are leaving the town. Tufts of snow still line tree branches and roadsides, but the breaking clouds and the sun shining through it are sure to clear that out soon. Birds are slowly returning north--I can hear them outside for the first time in months. Still, it’s cold, and I pull my hat further over my head and scarf tighter around my neck. My earmuffs pull on my mane as I walk out of the inn, but I make no effort to adjust them. They would pull on me regardless of their positioning.
I meet my friend at an intersection. He’s a unicorn, with glasses and a matted mane. I call out to him when I see him standing idly, leaning against a lamppost. To this, he looks up and gives me a wave.
“This is it, then?” he says, nudging my shoulder. I look at his sweater. Hoof-stitched, but not professionally made. Maybe from a parent, or his lover. He continues, “One more day and you’re just gone like that?”
I nod. “The innkeeper’s given me my pay, and I haven’t seen or heard anything of her in the two weeks I’ve been here. I think it’s time to move on.”
He looks up at the sky, and I follow his gaze. The clouds have shifted, uncovering the sun’s direct light. I move a hoof to shield my eyes, but he just looks on. I can see wisps of his breath coming from his mouth in the still-frigid air.
“Have you heard anything of her?” he asks. “Any idea where you’re going next?”
“West,” I say. The only street that passes all the way through this town goes east to west. “If she came through here, she must have gone west. After that, I don’t know.”
He says nothing at first, but the look on his face is one of understanding. Then, he opens his mouth to speak, though hesitantly, and says, “You’re sure you can keep this up? How much money do you have?”
Now I say nothing. Both of us know that what I have isn’t much.
“Well, then,” he says, reaching into his jacket pockets, and he gives me a small bag of coins.
We say our goodbyes, and he tells me to come visit again should I ever get the chance. As I watch him disappear down the road, I draw out the black and white photograph that led me to the town--a crumped newspaper ad, stained by the rims of a coffee mug. A mare, turned away from the camera, walking out of Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries, holding a large paper bag. It was faint, but I could see the nib of an ear of corn sticking out from its top. A pleated skirt covered most of her cutie mark, but it looked like flowers. Of course, I had no way of truly telling if it was her or not, but I was certain.
From the intersection, down the road was Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries. Whenever I wasn’t working at the inn for the last two weeks, I’d be sitting in the cafe across the road, seeing if my sister ever showed up again. Maybe she saw the ad and left. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Twice I went into the shop and asked the ponies that worked there if they saw a mare who bought lots of corn and had two roses for a cutie mark, but none of them seemed to remember.
“Are you sure?” I had asked the first time. I took out the ad. “It was on the day that this photo was taken.”
The filly--a part-timer, from the way she acted--didn’t look up. “Look,” she said. “Do you know just how many ponies we get in a day?”
The grocery store wasn’t very large. I estimated that they had maybe ten or twenty customers on any given day, but I didn’t tell her that.
“I’m really sorry to hear about it,” she said, “but I can’t help you. I didn’t see anypony matching your description.”
The second time I went in, I spoke to the owner. She remembered seeing the mare in the picture.
“Yes!” she said. She was sweeping up the store right before closing. “She came in sometime last month. She bought almost an entire bag’s worth of corn. I didn’t think she could carry it out, but she did it, Celestia bless her.”
“Did she say anything?” I asked. “Do you know where she was going? Please, anything would be of immense help.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there. I can tell you what kind of corn she bought, though.”
That was on the fourth day after I arrived in this town.
Now I walk by the store for the last time. Through its windows, I saw the filly at the checkout again, and the owner talking to an older stallion. They don’t seem to notice me. So I keep walking.
I was born seven years after my sister. We lived in a sizeable town, a sunny place where the weather never got too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters. They used to joke that our town only had two seasons, spring and fall. It was--and still is--a quaint place, about two hours by carriage south of Hoofington.
My sister and I used to live by the main road that went through the town. Not on it, just close to it. The main road was often traveled upon by carriages passing through to and from Hoofington, and we didn’t like the noise. The bulk of the town’s businesses were on that street, however, so we didn’t have much of a choice in that regard.
These things about our town I know not because I remember them well from my childhood, but because I am reminded of them by the paths my sister seems to take when she moves. She always goes to a small town reminiscent of where we used to live, always moving away from the large cities. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like the noise, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t trust ponies. There aren’t many things I remember about my town.
Like my mother. But then, she wasn’t around for most of my childhood. My sister would probably know more about her.
My father, on the other hoof, I remember well. His eyes were always sunken, bloodshot. He never smiled. His mane was ratty and unkempt, and he perpetually reeked of alcohol. He was fat, and his chins accumulated under his hairy neck. He always occupied the same place on the living room couch when he wasn’t sleeping in the bedroom. I remember his voice. And moreover, I remember its intensity. I’m sure my sister remembers him well, too. And I’m sure that like me, she wishes she didn’t.
I don’t remember the night our mother left us, but I remember what my sister told me of it. She said our mother was going out to buy milk and cereal for me, when I was in the early years of grade school. Our mother told her that she’d be back soon. A quick trip. My sister said that at the time, I was sitting in the hallway, staring blankly at the wallpaper. She said that she kept looking at the clock, wondering when our mother would come back. She’d be back soon, she said. Then she told me that our father came home before our mother, and she didn’t say anything after that.
I suppose that this is why whenever I asked if my sister would be back soon, she’d never say “Yes” or “I’ll be back soon,” but rather, she’d reply with some other turn of phrase. Though, I don’t actually remember her voice, only what she said. Or what she didn’t say.
She didn’t talk much about herself, or about us. This is, in part, why I don’t remember much about her--because there isn’t much to remember.
We left our father when he was in one of his drunken stupors a few months after our mother left. He was in his bedroom, and his snoring echoed throughout the house. My sister told me to take only what I needed. She took the bag of savings she had hidden away since our mother’s departure, and I took a tattered blanket. We stole away into the night, galloping under the stars on the old main road, far away from town. Where we went after that, I don’t remember, but we went far.
This would be another reason I don’t remember much about her. It was nearly ten years ago when we left our father, and nearly seven years ago when she left me.
The innkeeper from the last town gave me a pittance for what I’d done for her, but a pittance was what I had agreed to work for. The next town I stop at has an inn as well, and the townsponies around here seem hospitable enough. This town is notably larger than that one, but none of the last few small towns I’ve been to have mentioned a newcomer, only passersby.
I walk into a general store off its main road and begin asking the usual questions. “Excuse me, have you seen an orange earth pony mare with...” And I list some of her physical features to whoever’s listening. The clerks, the customers, the delivery ponies in the back loading boxes into the storage room. I read them off a small slip of paper that I have.
“Don’t sound like you got much t’ go off of, kid,” says one delivery pony as he levitates a box off of the back of their carriage. The evening’s waning sunlight glints off the frame of his glasses. “D’ you remember what this sister of yours even looks like without needin’ a cheat sheet?”
To this, I remain silent and bite my lower lip. His irritated expression seems to mean that he’s noticed.
I remember her actions, the way she talks, the words she’s said, and her smile. The way she used to cook corn, the patches on her skirt, the way she ate. I don’t remember what she looks like, what her voice sounds like. How tall she is, if she’s fat or skinny, anything like that. Given how long it’s been since the last time I saw her--four years ago, just a glimpse of her as she left the crowd we were in--what she might look like now might be completely different from what she looked like then.
The delivery pony sighs. “There’re a lot of orange earth ponies in town, kid, and cutie marks ain’t exactly unique.” He points to his own, then to another delivery pony’s. They’re both pairs of cardboard boxes, one open and one closed. “I guess I can keep a look out for anypony who might match the description, but that’s a bit of a long shot, y’know?”
I bow in thanks, and he tells me where I can find him should I need to contact him. The rest of the ponies around offer vague suggestions of where I might find her or mentions of “I think I saw her in the shopping district,” but none of them seem too solid. Nopony seemed to respond to my mention of corn.
After that, I go to the market. Rows of produce stretch across the grounds of a field, about half the size of a football field. The air is filled with the aroma of fresh-cut flowers by florists in the corner and the freshly picked fruit in the stands. They are, at least, all advertised as fresh. Fruit and vegetable sellers barter with the townsfolk, trying to convince them of the quality of their products over those down the row.
There appears to be only one corn seller in the market. He is tall, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and he sports a large moustache. When I walk up to him, he’s reading a magazine, not paying attention to the many flies that buzz about his corn.
“Sir,” I say.
He looks up for a second, then back down to the magazine.
“You wouldn’t have seen an orange earth...”
“Nope,” he replies, not looking up from his magazine. “Haven’t seen anyone before. This is my first day here.”
I scan the market for anypony who might look like my sister. The flies buzz around his corn as well as the lettuce stall to my left and the cherry stall to my right.
“You’re not looking for anypony to help with selling corn, are you?”
He turns the page. “You looking for a job?”
“Yes.”
“How much are you willing to work for?”
I tell him the amount that the innkeeper paid me. He puts down the magazine.
“Okay, kid,” he says, looking at me for the first time. “See this?” He points at the scale. “It’s two bits per pound. Here’s the bags you put the corn in. They’re one bit each, if they don’t have their own bags.”
He gets up. “I’m goin’ back to my cart to take a nap. If you sell ten pounds by the time I get back, you can stay.” He waves a hoof at the cherry seller. “Hey, Aces, keep an eye on this kid for me, will ya?” With that, he leaves.
The first hour passes mostly uneventfully. Ponies come by, and I put the corn on the scale. They give me their bits, sometimes for both the corn and bag, and they leave. The second hour had a pony try to haggle with me, but I didn’t know what the corn seller found acceptable, so she left without a purchase.
In the third hour, I catch a glimpse of a mare, two rows down. Her mane is long and her tail is short, but her coat is orange and her cutie mark are two flowers, side by side. She has in her mouth a bag of other vegetables in her mouth.
She comes up to me, and she smiles.
It’s a warm smile. But a foreign smile.
“Three ears, please?” she says.
It wasn’t my sister. I asked her if that was her in the last town a month ago, and she said it was. She was passing through from her hometown while visiting her parents, and now she’s returned home to her husband and children.
And so it wasn’t my sister.
So here I sit, selling corn for a stranger, in a town far from where my sister and I once lived, far from where I last saw her. She could be near me, or further away, now more than ever. Maybe she’s settled down long ago, or maybe she’s still on the move. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know.
But wherever she is, I’m sure that she still loves her corn, and when she cooks them, she still hums our mother’s song, twirling as she moves between stove and sink, cooking the ears five at a time, smiling all the while.
My older sister loved corn. Crazy about it, I should say. Every Saturday, when she came back from the market, she’d bring back with her a giant bag of produce--cabbages, apples, carrots, and more than anything else, corn. Corn of all sorts, too. She got white corn, yellow corn, brown and black corn, corns I’d never seen before. After sorting everything into the pantry, she’d go straight to the kitchen and boil or pop the corn. We never ran out of corn through any season.
I remember how she cooked it, too. She had a bit of a routine, a ritual. First, she’d sing or hum a tune our mother taught to her when she was young. I don’t remember the words to that song, but given how she’d alternate between humming the melody and singing the lyrics, I don’t think she did, either. As she half-sang and half-hummed, she’d fill a large pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. Afterwards, she’d peel the husks off the ears one by one, shucking the waste into a small bin on the counter. She did a bit of a pirouette as she turned from the stove to the sink, and the hem of her skirt twirled as elegantly as a skirt that was more patches than cloth could twirl.
Then--and around here, she usually got the song’s chorus, if I could call it that--she’d begin washing off dirt and the thread-like plant material that still stuck to the kernels. She scrubbed the ears rather hard, but not hard enough to damage the kernels. I once asked her why she didn’t just be more careful when she pulled off the husk. She told me that this was faster, and she went to scrubbing with her efforts redoubled. She’d always hold the ear in her left front hoof and scrub with her right, even though she was left-hoofed, and she’d always scrub up and down the length of the corn. Finally, every five ears she cleaned, and she always cooked ears in sets of five, she’d put them pointy-side first into the now-boiling water.
I myself didn’t share her passion for corn, but it made her happy. I suppose that that in turn, seeing her happy made me happy as well. I remember way she’d smile at me as she put the fresh and steaming corn on our dining table.
It’s one of the few things I still remember about her.
It’s spring, now, and the remains of winter are leaving the town. Tufts of snow still line tree branches and roadsides, but the breaking clouds and the sun shining through it are sure to clear that out soon. Birds are slowly returning north--I can hear them outside for the first time in months. Still, it’s cold, and I pull my hat further over my head and scarf tighter around my neck. My earmuffs pull on my mane as I walk out of the inn, but I make no effort to adjust them. They would pull on me regardless of their positioning.
I meet my friend at an intersection. He’s a unicorn, with glasses and a matted mane. I call out to him when I see him standing idly, leaning against a lamppost. To this, he looks up and gives me a wave.
“This is it, then?” he says, nudging my shoulder. I look at his sweater. Hoof-stitched, but not professionally made. Maybe from a parent, or his lover. He continues, “One more day and you’re just gone like that?”
I nod. “The innkeeper’s given me my pay, and I haven’t seen or heard anything of her in the two weeks I’ve been here. I think it’s time to move on.”
He looks up at the sky, and I follow his gaze. The clouds have shifted, uncovering the sun’s direct light. I move a hoof to shield my eyes, but he just looks on. I can see wisps of his breath coming from his mouth in the still-frigid air.
“Have you heard anything of her?” he asks. “Any idea where you’re going next?”
“West,” I say. The only street that passes all the way through this town goes east to west. “If she came through here, she must have gone west. After that, I don’t know.”
He says nothing at first, but the look on his face is one of understanding. Then, he opens his mouth to speak, though hesitantly, and says, “You’re sure you can keep this up? How much money do you have?”
Now I say nothing. Both of us know that what I have isn’t much.
“Well, then,” he says, reaching into his jacket pockets, and he gives me a small bag of coins.
We say our goodbyes, and he tells me to come visit again should I ever get the chance. As I watch him disappear down the road, I draw out the black and white photograph that led me to the town--a crumped newspaper ad, stained by the rims of a coffee mug. A mare, turned away from the camera, walking out of Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries, holding a large paper bag. It was faint, but I could see the nib of an ear of corn sticking out from its top. A pleated skirt covered most of her cutie mark, but it looked like flowers. Of course, I had no way of truly telling if it was her or not, but I was certain.
From the intersection, down the road was Cloverleaf’s Green Groceries. Whenever I wasn’t working at the inn for the last two weeks, I’d be sitting in the cafe across the road, seeing if my sister ever showed up again. Maybe she saw the ad and left. Maybe I’ve just been unlucky. Twice I went into the shop and asked the ponies that worked there if they saw a mare who bought lots of corn and had two roses for a cutie mark, but none of them seemed to remember.
“Are you sure?” I had asked the first time. I took out the ad. “It was on the day that this photo was taken.”
The filly--a part-timer, from the way she acted--didn’t look up. “Look,” she said. “Do you know just how many ponies we get in a day?”
The grocery store wasn’t very large. I estimated that they had maybe ten or twenty customers on any given day, but I didn’t tell her that.
“I’m really sorry to hear about it,” she said, “but I can’t help you. I didn’t see anypony matching your description.”
The second time I went in, I spoke to the owner. She remembered seeing the mare in the picture.
“Yes!” she said. She was sweeping up the store right before closing. “She came in sometime last month. She bought almost an entire bag’s worth of corn. I didn’t think she could carry it out, but she did it, Celestia bless her.”
“Did she say anything?” I asked. “Do you know where she was going? Please, anything would be of immense help.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there. I can tell you what kind of corn she bought, though.”
That was on the fourth day after I arrived in this town.
Now I walk by the store for the last time. Through its windows, I saw the filly at the checkout again, and the owner talking to an older stallion. They don’t seem to notice me. So I keep walking.
I was born seven years after my sister. We lived in a sizeable town, a sunny place where the weather never got too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters. They used to joke that our town only had two seasons, spring and fall. It was--and still is--a quaint place, about two hours by carriage south of Hoofington.
My sister and I used to live by the main road that went through the town. Not on it, just close to it. The main road was often traveled upon by carriages passing through to and from Hoofington, and we didn’t like the noise. The bulk of the town’s businesses were on that street, however, so we didn’t have much of a choice in that regard.
These things about our town I know not because I remember them well from my childhood, but because I am reminded of them by the paths my sister seems to take when she moves. She always goes to a small town reminiscent of where we used to live, always moving away from the large cities. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t like the noise, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t trust ponies. There aren’t many things I remember about my town.
Like my mother. But then, she wasn’t around for most of my childhood. My sister would probably know more about her.
My father, on the other hoof, I remember well. His eyes were always sunken, bloodshot. He never smiled. His mane was ratty and unkempt, and he perpetually reeked of alcohol. He was fat, and his chins accumulated under his hairy neck. He always occupied the same place on the living room couch when he wasn’t sleeping in the bedroom. I remember his voice. And moreover, I remember its intensity. I’m sure my sister remembers him well, too. And I’m sure that like me, she wishes she didn’t.
I don’t remember the night our mother left us, but I remember what my sister told me of it. She said our mother was going out to buy milk and cereal for me, when I was in the early years of grade school. Our mother told her that she’d be back soon. A quick trip. My sister said that at the time, I was sitting in the hallway, staring blankly at the wallpaper. She said that she kept looking at the clock, wondering when our mother would come back. She’d be back soon, she said. Then she told me that our father came home before our mother, and she didn’t say anything after that.
I suppose that this is why whenever I asked if my sister would be back soon, she’d never say “Yes” or “I’ll be back soon,” but rather, she’d reply with some other turn of phrase. Though, I don’t actually remember her voice, only what she said. Or what she didn’t say.
She didn’t talk much about herself, or about us. This is, in part, why I don’t remember much about her--because there isn’t much to remember.
We left our father when he was in one of his drunken stupors a few months after our mother left. He was in his bedroom, and his snoring echoed throughout the house. My sister told me to take only what I needed. She took the bag of savings she had hidden away since our mother’s departure, and I took a tattered blanket. We stole away into the night, galloping under the stars on the old main road, far away from town. Where we went after that, I don’t remember, but we went far.
This would be another reason I don’t remember much about her. It was nearly ten years ago when we left our father, and nearly seven years ago when she left me.
The innkeeper from the last town gave me a pittance for what I’d done for her, but a pittance was what I had agreed to work for. The next town I stop at has an inn as well, and the townsponies around here seem hospitable enough. This town is notably larger than that one, but none of the last few small towns I’ve been to have mentioned a newcomer, only passersby.
I walk into a general store off its main road and begin asking the usual questions. “Excuse me, have you seen an orange earth pony mare with...” And I list some of her physical features to whoever’s listening. The clerks, the customers, the delivery ponies in the back loading boxes into the storage room. I read them off a small slip of paper that I have.
“Don’t sound like you got much t’ go off of, kid,” says one delivery pony as he levitates a box off of the back of their carriage. The evening’s waning sunlight glints off the frame of his glasses. “D’ you remember what this sister of yours even looks like without needin’ a cheat sheet?”
To this, I remain silent and bite my lower lip. His irritated expression seems to mean that he’s noticed.
I remember her actions, the way she talks, the words she’s said, and her smile. The way she used to cook corn, the patches on her skirt, the way she ate. I don’t remember what she looks like, what her voice sounds like. How tall she is, if she’s fat or skinny, anything like that. Given how long it’s been since the last time I saw her--four years ago, just a glimpse of her as she left the crowd we were in--what she might look like now might be completely different from what she looked like then.
The delivery pony sighs. “There’re a lot of orange earth ponies in town, kid, and cutie marks ain’t exactly unique.” He points to his own, then to another delivery pony’s. They’re both pairs of cardboard boxes, one open and one closed. “I guess I can keep a look out for anypony who might match the description, but that’s a bit of a long shot, y’know?”
I bow in thanks, and he tells me where I can find him should I need to contact him. The rest of the ponies around offer vague suggestions of where I might find her or mentions of “I think I saw her in the shopping district,” but none of them seem too solid. Nopony seemed to respond to my mention of corn.
After that, I go to the market. Rows of produce stretch across the grounds of a field, about half the size of a football field. The air is filled with the aroma of fresh-cut flowers by florists in the corner and the freshly picked fruit in the stands. They are, at least, all advertised as fresh. Fruit and vegetable sellers barter with the townsfolk, trying to convince them of the quality of their products over those down the row.
There appears to be only one corn seller in the market. He is tall, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and he sports a large moustache. When I walk up to him, he’s reading a magazine, not paying attention to the many flies that buzz about his corn.
“Sir,” I say.
He looks up for a second, then back down to the magazine.
“You wouldn’t have seen an orange earth...”
“Nope,” he replies, not looking up from his magazine. “Haven’t seen anyone before. This is my first day here.”
I scan the market for anypony who might look like my sister. The flies buzz around his corn as well as the lettuce stall to my left and the cherry stall to my right.
“You’re not looking for anypony to help with selling corn, are you?”
He turns the page. “You looking for a job?”
“Yes.”
“How much are you willing to work for?”
I tell him the amount that the innkeeper paid me. He puts down the magazine.
“Okay, kid,” he says, looking at me for the first time. “See this?” He points at the scale. “It’s two bits per pound. Here’s the bags you put the corn in. They’re one bit each, if they don’t have their own bags.”
He gets up. “I’m goin’ back to my cart to take a nap. If you sell ten pounds by the time I get back, you can stay.” He waves a hoof at the cherry seller. “Hey, Aces, keep an eye on this kid for me, will ya?” With that, he leaves.
The first hour passes mostly uneventfully. Ponies come by, and I put the corn on the scale. They give me their bits, sometimes for both the corn and bag, and they leave. The second hour had a pony try to haggle with me, but I didn’t know what the corn seller found acceptable, so she left without a purchase.
In the third hour, I catch a glimpse of a mare, two rows down. Her mane is long and her tail is short, but her coat is orange and her cutie mark are two flowers, side by side. She has in her mouth a bag of other vegetables in her mouth.
She comes up to me, and she smiles.
It’s a warm smile. But a foreign smile.
“Three ears, please?” she says.
It wasn’t my sister. I asked her if that was her in the last town a month ago, and she said it was. She was passing through from her hometown while visiting her parents, and now she’s returned home to her husband and children.
And so it wasn’t my sister.
So here I sit, selling corn for a stranger, in a town far from where my sister and I once lived, far from where I last saw her. She could be near me, or further away, now more than ever. Maybe she’s settled down long ago, or maybe she’s still on the move. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know.
But wherever she is, I’m sure that she still loves her corn, and when she cooks them, she still hums our mother’s song, twirling as she moves between stove and sink, cooking the ears five at a time, smiling all the while.