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Marshmallow Webs Between My Fingers
By Robin Mills
It’s a summer morning on Granville Avenue, my grandparent’s home. The wafting smell of Sanka, released by boiling water poured over freeze-dried crystals in the bottom of a cracked and stained white porcelain mug, slinks out of the linoleum floored kitchen with yellow counter tops, sails down the hall to our bedroom where we sleep, our heads on flattened pillows and our little bodies under mothball infused quilts.
Dragging our summer-tanned and happily worn bodies to the table, twisting fists dislodging sleep from our eyes, we sit, awaiting our breakfast. For the kids, ¼ cup Sanka, ¾ cups milk and a heaping teaspoon of brown sugar. I stir the mixture, from brown and white swirls to a tan much like the color the summer sun has laid on my scrawny legs. I slip the spoon covered in undissolved grounds into my mouth, a bite of bitter on my tongue.
My grandmother serves fresh squeezed orange juice frothed in the blender like an Orange Julius, and a hot bowl of Zoom multigrain cereal with a dollop of yellow margarine. My grandfather, tapping-til-it-cracks, an egg in its faded yellow poached egg holder that I can’t differentiate from the eye-rinse cup that sits on the pink tiled bathroom counter.
I walk across the creaky empty chairs, steadying myself on the chairbacks and table, to his lap, where he never declines to hold me, his fit arms around my waist. I love his smell of campfire smoke from last night’s backyard bonfire. My grandpa seated, stoking the fire, my brother and I each straddling one bouncing knee, our three faces orange-warm as he tells us ghost stories.
We eat charred marshmallows smashed between honey sweet graham crackers, oozing with sweet, melted chocolate that drips down our chins before wiping it away with the back of a hand. White marshmallow webs of sticky white threads between my fingers inevitably end up in my hair.
After breakfast, my grandpa plays his favorite Gilbert and Sullivan record and sings along in his best faux operatic voice until we squirm and complain enough.
Once the clatter and clang of dirty dishes settles and my grandmother appears, we race to the green Oldsmobile sleeping silently in the driveway. We slip and slide with glee, unbuckled across the back bench seat, sailing down Santa Monica Boulevard until we reach the ocean with the sticky smell of sand and suntan lotion and sweet pink cotton candy. Always cotton candy.
Robin Mills lives in Petaluma California. By day she is an American Sign Language interpreter. Her non-work hours are spent writing, swimming, hiking, photographing the world around her, traveling, playing in various art forms and swing dancing.
