“Inez era del carajo.” Thus Mamita summarized her mother-in-law in one succinct sentence.

Inez Chavez, Papito’s mother and your great-great-grandmother, was one tough lady. Born in Key West, moved to Tampa, worked in a cigar factory, married, had two children and buried them, became a widow, remarried, had a son, widowed anew, tormented Mamita, doted on  your Grandma, died of a bad blood transfusion.

And then we have this pretty polly of a piece to remember Inez by. The top bowl broke long before I set my eyes on it, but it can still come in handy filled with kerosene if a hurricane blows through town.

Speaking of hot air, Inez was also a devout Catholic—which only confirmed Mamita’s complete disdain for any affectations of piety by people who weren’t very, well, Christian. Inez believed in a panoply of saints and bought orations that could pretty much cover any and all ailments or misfortune in a brimming catalogue of potential human calamity. And, indeed, when you think of the hardships Inez endured, one can hardly begrudge her a belief in something finer, full of mercy, a heaven beyond this world.

But if you asked Mamita, Inez came from the other place.