YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO IT ALL ALONE

when i was four years old i would plead for my grandmother to give me pickle juice in a cup because i liked the way it tasted. we would play chinese checkers in the darkness of the living room and she'd tell me how grandpa had made the board. grandfather clocks and cuckoo clocks interrupted us and marbles spilled. she'd dismally listen to the radio when she was alone and i know she did it just to hear a voice. i was terrified of the convex glass portraits of her parents hanging on the wall but i never told her that. we would share a bed on the weeknights when i'd sleep there. she'd take her teeth out at night and they'd clink to the bottom of a glass in the bathroom. i wondered why her teeth were floating and why she didn't own a hairbrush - didn't she brush her hair and how did she brush her teeth?