My grandma was Italian, extremely petite, and superb in the kitchen. She taught me how to make fluffy, air-filled tapioca by whipping egg whites into meringue before stirring them into hot milk. She liked to eat oranges with thin slices of Vidalia onions, garbanzos, and a slim drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil on top. Grandma always served herself on side plates, or in small glass ramekins, to make sure she ate tiny portions.

My grandpa, however, was Polish, morbidly obese, and liked to show off by eating strips of raw bacon. He’d dangle the bacon over his mouth, wiggle it, and then lap it up with a grin while my cousins and I squealed in horror. He ate three meals a day in his brown La-Z-Boy while he watched television, and he kept a generous stash of hard candies in the side table drawer beside him. Our game: to pester Grandpa slowly and deliberately until he yelled at us or gave us candy. He usually gave us candy at first, which meant we would come back to push our luck a second time. Then he’d yell. This terrified us in the best way.

My cousins and I were at our grandparents’ house in Evansville, Indiana on the day of the tornado warning. This was the first time I’d experienced one, but my cousins lived through tornadoes every year; they weren’t afraid this time, and I followed their lead. My three cousins lived in Evansville, so they often stayed with our grandparents during the day. I was visiting from Sudbury, and this was the first time my parents left me there on my own. In their absence, my grandparents’ house felt different, more tangible. It was as though a pane of glass had been removed from a diorama, and now, on my own, I was free to see and touch and live in the real house.

To read the rest of “Grandpa’s Fries,” order your copy of PRISM 51:2 here.