as he tells you Grandmother will come to visit in a couple months.
On the left side of the living room is Grandpa’s bedroom. Smells like menthol, pipe tobacco and mice. When it’s hot, he sleeps outside in the hammock strung between two pines.
In the kitchen, you find both wood burning and kerosene stoves. Grandpa must not notice the fire hazard. The kerosene stove sits on a table skirted by oilcloth, behind which mama-mouse tends her brood. When Grandmother comes, the mouse will take one baby at a time to Grandpa’s bedroom to nest in his mattress. Grandmother will scream, pick up her skirt and jump on a chair. You’ll laugh like crazy.
The kitchen sink has a hand pump. This is eventually replaced with a faucet and sometimes running water, which helps Grandpa rinse the blueberries before canning over twenty quarts.
Grandmother will paint the sunroom floor blue one year. She’ll start on the wrong end and work herself into a corner. You’re going to watch from the backyard as she climbs out the window. You’ll snicker when she shows garters holding up her stockings. Grandmother always wears garters attached to her girdle. A lacey bra covers her ample bosom. Even when she’s painting the floor, she wears a fancy dress with a belt cinched to her waist. Her face is powdered and rouged; her lipstick’s called ‘Picnic Pink.’ Not what you’d call a typical grandmother. Grandpa, on the other hand, wears the same old plaid shirt under his overalls.
Upstairs are two dormer bedrooms, one of them yours. The old-fashioned bed creaks. A window faces the two big rocks that your