Cozy down.
Extruviance of oranges, pink grapefruit.
Born to last or let out.
― I wake up at for o‘clock, and I lie and think. At six I rise and go into the bathroom and move my bowels.‖
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A silver bar on the wall by the tub. So she can sit there and let our aunt Francie give her a bath.
―Then I get dressed.‖ And then she just sits in her chair. Opens the tiny refrigerator and gets out dewberries and custard that Francie brought over the night before. Pours out dewberries and ladles out custard for Mistletoe and me and for herself into little blue and white bowls. The dewberries are huge. She takes a spoonful to her dark lips and chews and chews, with her large yellowed teeth and her bridge.
Her bridge. We children confuse it with the bridge of her violin. Grandma took the violin down from the bookcase behind her and played it for us. The bridge looked like cheese with holes. Daddy said that she was very good.
―Does your other grandmother really have all her teeth?‘
―Yes,‖ I said, tears escaping from my eyes from the strain of trying not to yawn. It was very hot in her apartment in the summers in Atlantic City. The windows were closed.
―Why are you crying?‘ she asked.
―I‘m not. I‘m trying not to yawn.‖
―Yawn! Go ahead and yawn!‖ she would say.
And I would yawn.