The road still bends left and right on the way to grandpa’s house. It has always been a curvy neighborhood, and I’ve always noticed that from the back seat of our red van. I always get carsick back there, but my brother and sister argue that I’m the youngest and therefore squished between the suitcases is my assigned seat for the duration of the five hour car ride. My mind flashes back to that one time when we arrived at night. I could barely see anything, and with the moving of the car it felt like we were sailing in the middle of the ocean. Our ship points its nose up as we climb a wave bigger than we have seen that night. From my position at the stern, I peered towards the bow and saw the blackness in front of us was dotted with bright stars, no doubt leading us in our journey through the water. We then dipped down again, and continued on our path. We crawl up that same hill today, but all I see are the grey clouds threatening to open up at any minute, and I feel my stomach drop once more. 

My mind wanders as we wind through the neighborhood. Like a game of word association, I think of things that used to remind me of grandpa’s house. A sock full of coins, dropping toys down the laundry shoot and catching them on the other side, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a room plastered floor to ceiling with old photos, a rubber pig that would “oink” every time the fridge was opened. These things flash through my mind as we get closer. What do I associate with his house now? Memories, I guess. But they are good memories, and full of love. Like when we all sat in the living room looking at my mom’s old high school yearbooks. We laughed at my uncle's 80’s hairstyle and called my aunt a nerd for being in so many clubs. I awed at my mom’s senior prom dress that she made herself. Long, silky, and the deep pink of a pomegranate soda. “Someday you will have a prom, too, Molly Moo. And maybe you can make your dress like I did”. I struggle with tying my shoes and she’s talking about making a dress? For my high school prom?

 We finally arrive, but it looks like a different house. Colder and greyer. The red on the shutters is duller and it’s obvious it hasn’t been repainted since the very first layer. Back when we were kids, my cousins and I would race out of the car to go explore the mysterious castle that was grandpa’s house. I was a princess along with my two cousins and sister. My brother was the dragon who chased us in circles around the yard. Now, I sigh and stall for a few moments before opening the door and making the trek up his steep driveway. It dawns on me now that his car is parked out here. With my eyes, I trace the path he must take every day from the front door, down the two flights of concrete stairs, and halfway down the driveway to the driver’s side door of his aging sedan. How the hell does he get to his car without falling? He can’t even get out of his chair without help. Honestly, I don’t know how my grandpa does anything living by himself for more than ten years. Although I don’t have my own memories of my grandma, my mom has filled in a lot. She loved the theatre and directed a bunch of plays and musicals that my aunts and uncle starred in. She also made costumes and taught my mom how to sew. She was an amazing painter. We have some of her work hanging in our house and I was convinced that we bought them until my mom told me their true origin. I don’t remember her, but I like to think that a drop of her creativity somehow trickled down through the generations and landed in me. My sister pulls me out of my thoughts, “Hey - you wanna help unload the car or are you just gonna stand there?”

The same feelings of excitement and curiousness I had in the past rise inside of me slowly as I emerge through the front door. One thing I can always count on is my grandpa sitting in the sinking chair pointed at the tv in the living room. He groans out a cheery “Heeeeey!” when he hears us enter and lifts himself out of the maroon upholstery with embroidered flowers. My dad hurries over to help him and to make sure he doesn’t fall back down into the dangerously low seat, for fear that he may not be able to lift himself again right away. I know that grandpa is getting older. I went to his 90th birthday party at the fancy restaurant (To be honest, I don’t remember what I had for dinner, but I do remember the birthday cake: a layer of chocolate cake on top of a layer of cheesecake glued together with fudge and covered in frosting. Delicious). I helped to light the candles on the cake (I said we should have 90 candles but my aunt said it wouldn’t fit, even though that cake almost filled the whole table). I even signed the framed photo of all of the grandkids we got him as a gift (His birthday was only last year but the photo was taken when I was, like, seven. If it were up to me, I would have chosen a photo in which my hair was actually brushed and my clothes were from somewhere other than The Children’s Place). All of these things indicate growing old, but it didn’t hit me until the pillow fights stopped. He used to randomly smack me and my cousins with pillows when we hung out at their house, only thirty minutes away from here. And we would smack him too, and we wouldn’t hold back. These attacks of “grandpa versus the kids” would eventually evolve into “every man for himself” and grandpa would take a seat and smile, watching the chaotic fun he initiated. Now, he is teetering on his heels as my dad tentatively hovers his hand behind grandpa’s back.

At first glance, everything looks the same inside the house. When we ran around here at six or seven, all we could see was a blur of walls and chairs and tables. Our attention was more focused on getting to the top of the tower before the dragon caught us and locked us in the dungeon. Now, upon closer inspection, I notice the walls are covered with my late grandma’s paintings, all but one chair are in the same condition that we left them (from lack of use), and every table is sprinkled with orange pill bottles. “...Yeah maybe we can start by decluttering the basement and then move on to the upstairs rooms tomorrow?”. My mom kind of becomes a new person when we see grandpa. At least that hasn’t changed. She walks in like she owns the place and immediately starts opening up the fold out couch or putting groceries in the fridge. She doesn't stop moving until everything is put away. I can’t help but smile when she bounced up the stairs, suitcases in hand. In that moment, a feeling washed over me that I only get when my mom and grandpa are in the same room  – she had a childhood as well. I have seen the pictures and heard the stories and, of course, everyone has a childhood, but it is never so real as when I see them together. It is even more intense when we are in the house she grew up in. When she walks through the door, I see a teenager arriving home from school. When I am sitting across from her at the dining room table, I see a picky toddler not wanting to eat her vegetables. When we are watching tv at night, I see a little girl begging her dad to let her stay up for just five more minutes. So maybe that’s why I pretend I don’t understand what the pill bottles mean when I hear her coming back down the stairs behind me. She’s served her time as the innocent child in this house and it’s still my turn. She now gets to be the reassuring adult who rephrases the confusing medical terms into words I can understand. 

I move into the kitchen. The same lights from 20 years ago are hanging from the ceiling above the island. My dad loves to tell the story of how he walked into this house for the first time and my uncle was installing those very lights. This was after my grandpa met him at the door and mistook him for someone named Ken. “No, Ken couldn’t make it so I came instead”, my dad joked. They laugh about this now for the billionth time. The recollection is so clear I can almost see myself in the commotion of the kitchen that Thanksgiving Day. Maybe I’m mashing potatoes or chopping green beans when Amy and her new boyfriend (whose name is not Ken) appear next to the microwave. But that was before my time and now there are only the lights hanging over the empty and unused island. To this day my dad says that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. As ironic as that is, since his first celebration wasn’t until that day, I can’t blame him. My grandma’s and mom’s cooking paired with the always hilarious banter from my aunts and uncle would be more than enough to constitute a favorite. Especially since we have reconnected with them every year since for another round of Oh Hell, the card game that takes over every evening spent with my mom’s side of the family. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of this game (“It’s  similar to Yukure”, I was told, but that didn’t spark my interest either). I was afraid to admit this for the longest time, for fear I would be uninvited from the next gathering. But when I finally did, my dad let me sit on his lap and help keep score. I even got to see the big book in which they keep all of the Oh Hell scores. The book is so thick and old that they must have started storing the scores decades ago. 

“Molly, come here” Grandpa calls to me with his soft and deep voice from his favorite chair in the living room. He points a finger towards the back patio. “You know, I get a lot of deer back there. They just keep coming”. He says this as if it’s some big mystery as to why they return. I shift my gaze towards my family who look up from their tasks at grandpa’s observation. We share a grin because we know that in reality, he tosses apples to them and they see this as an invitation to come back tomorrow. “Really? That’s pretty cool, they must like you”. This draws my attention to the sliding glass doors that lead to the garden outside. I rise from my seat on the arm of his chair and remember my favorite part of grandpa’s house. Taking steps toward the door, it was summertime. I’m getting closer and we climbed the path through the magical trees and beautiful bushes of rare flowers. My arm reaches out and we found the small, white pergola buried in the vines. I feel the cool steel of the handle and we have been living there for days. Fingers wrap around the metal as I get ready to pull and our pet fawn visited us. The glass door jerks open and I shiver. I forgot it’s only March.