"Seven," I said.
"Seven." She capped the marker. "Joanna, how long has she been in a seven?"
My mother didn't answer.
Then Sadie came clomping out of our room in her tan boots with the cream fleece cuffs, holding her thank-you card in both hands, and stopped in the doorway, and looked at the scene in the kitchen, which must have looked very strange to her: Abuela on the floor, me standing on one foot, a sneaker in the middle of the table with a strip of duct tape beside it, and our mother by the sink with her arms crossed so tight she looked like she was holding herself together.
"What's happening?" Sadie said.
"Nothing bad, my love," Abuela said, from the floor. "I'm measuring your sister's feet. Come show me those boots."
Sadie came over, uncertain. Abuela took one look at the boots, admiring, and touched the fleece cuff and said, "Oh, those are very good boots. You could walk to Alaska. Those are the good ones, with the felt liner. Those are what, Joanna, a hundred and forty? A hundred and fifty?"
"Connie, please."
"I'm only asking because I know Brent. I know what Brent buys. Brent buys a boat." She put one hand on the table and the other on the chair and started the long process of getting up. My mother didn't help her. I did. I held her elbow, standing on one bare foot and one sneakered foot, and she came up slowly, and when she was up, she was breathing a little hard, and she sat down in her chair and pulled the accordion file up off the floor and set it in her lap, with both hands flat on top of it.
"Sadie," she said, "is that a card?"
"It's for Daddy. For the shoes."