a girl, her grandma, a penthouse in florida

This is me sitting at the kitchen table in my grandmother's penthouse apartment in Florida. This is me and Grandma sitting at the kitchen table after lunchtime on a weekday in Florida with my sister without our parents. This is a weekday of vacation that would probably include a swim later or a game of pick-up sticks, or piano music. This is not a vacation moment.

This is lunch passing by on the clock, lunch passing by way after lunch is supposed to be over and me still at the table, and my grandmother still at the table, and something not right, not right at all, between us, something like thunder between us, like the rumble of thunder coming, like pre-thunder. This is a rumble of thunder. This is me at five years old with a too-big helping of cooked carrots holding valuable real estate on Grandma's luncheon china. This is a helping of cooked carrots on my plate not being eaten. This is me not eating a very big helping of cooked carrots. This is a grandmother watching a granddaughter not eat what she had been given to eat.

This is an over-large serving of cooked carrots not disappearing from my plate. This is an over-large serving of a dish my grandmother had made that morning in a gesture of pride and confidence and good nutrition and scooped just a few hours later onto my plate in a similar gesture of pride and confidence and good nutrition. This is my grandmother proud of her creation, convinced of it, knowing its goodness, and insisting, before I even had the chance to resist, that I should not be shy, insisting that I should try something new, insisting, insisting, and this is me knowing, deep in my gut where it counted most, this is me knowing something about that kind of insistence. This is me knowing something preternatural, precognizant, about Grandma's investment in cooked carrots and my eating of them. This is me knowing something about cooked carrots, and this me knowing that I definitely wasn't going to like them.

This is a rumble of thunder.

Even so, this is me feigning acquiescence, keeping the peace, sensing Grandma's ownership of the dish – a recipe from the old country, a secret passed down from her grandmother? I felt the gravity of the offering, certainly – and so this is me trying the carrots like a good girl. This is me trying just a bit of them, a small corner of them sidling up to the rest of my lunch. This is me with a fork rounding off a corner of a too-big helping of cooked carrots butting up against the part of lunch I was happy to eat. This is a forkful of cooked carrots being scraped off because Grandma was watching and because they were touching my fried chicken, and this is me grimacing to myself at first contact with the carrots. This is me knowing enough to keep the grimace to myself. Now this is me putting the carrots aside in favor of the rest of the meal. This is me sequestering the carrots into a corner of Grandma's luncheon china and intending to leave them there. This is me not thinking twice about this, this is me making sense of my meal, making a choice, making a reasonable five-year-old decision.

This is me on vacation at Grandma's house unsuspecting, thinking that it would be okay, to not like a thing, to be able to not finish it, to try it and not finish it and then be able to throw it away. This is me not knowing my grandmother. This is my grandmother never throwing away a thing. This is Grandma having fixed up a plate of good food for her granddaughter, for her youngest granddaughter who looked a little on the skinny side, who could use an extra big helping of something nutritious. This is Grandma thinking she is being generous with her portions, this is Grandma thinking she is being generous.

This is a gesture of generosity on the part of the grandmother. This is a gesture of generosity being rejected. This is a granddaughter looking at a monstrous pile of cooked carrots in disbelief after it becomes clear the grandmother is expecting her to eat it. This is a granddaughter not getting the gesture. This is a granddaughter believing she has every right to not like something and then not finish it. This is a grandmother not knowing her granddaughter and this is a granddaughter not knowing her grandmother. This is rumble of thunder.

This is my grandmother, Ruth Braun, a stern German woman who lived through the war, whose food was rationed, who lived on root vegetables in the forties, who probably did without chocolate during the toughest years, this is my grandmother shaking her head in her German defiance and telling me that I wouldn't be leaving the table until those carrots were eaten. This is my grandmother, Ruth Braun, telling me I wasn't going to leave the table until I ate all of those carrots by myself. This is me hearing I was expected to eat all of the carrots by myself. This is fear and confusion rising in the granddaughter.

This is fear and confusion cajoling themselves inside a kitchen in Florida mid-week of a vacation without parents. This is the raising of eyebrows to incite fear and obedience in the granddaughter. This is the sudden grey and weighty outlook of defeat and submission in the granddaughter. This is Grandma's rising eyebrows and this is my rising panic, and so this is me saying I'm too full. This is me saying I would finish everything else. This is me saying I would eat the carrots later. But then, this is me seeing that a lie wouldn't work, and this is a rumble of thunder.

This is a truth being told. This is a truth being told by a five-year-old girl to her stern German grandmother. This is me, in my panic, quietly telling Grandma that I didn't much like the cooked carrots she had made for me. This is Grandma, in her indignation, not so quietly telling me that it didn't matter whether I liked them or not. This is Grandma reminding me that I had a full serving of cooked carrots on my plate and there were starving children in Europe. This is me scanning the penthouse for a trace of my sister and any possible rescue. This is Grandma Ruth's pinpoint prick of a "no." This is her emphasis on the words "by yourself." This is an option running out. This is a clock ticking away an afternoon. This is vacation being over. This is rumble of thunder.

This is a five-year-old girl sitting at her grandmother's kitchen table in a sunny kitchen in Florida, watching the sun slide down from its zenith, watching the angle of light on the tile floor change and then disappear. This is a five-year-old girl watching her six-year-old sister twitter about the perimeter of the apartment, trying to gauge the progress in that kitchen, trying to see if little sis would do the right thing and finish up those stupid carrots, and each time seeing the plate stay the same, each time coming back through the living room seeing little sis and Grandma continue their staring match, and less light in the kitchen now and boy, those carrots must be getting cold, and when are we going to go swimming and will we at least get to the pool later if the beach is off-limits and will you please hurry up and finish what's on your plate. Big sis is thinking all this. This is me seeing big sis thinking all of this.

But this is me, this is me sitting at that kitchen table with Grandma Ruth's icy glare piercing my insides. This is me holding a fork over the plate with a shivering fist, eyes cast downward, lower lip trembling, under Grandma's elevated eyebrows. This is me in pre-flight preparation even though I'm not allowed to leave the table. This is me looking to Grandma for a bit of forgiveness, a reserved bit of remorse I now desperately believed was rooting around in her somewhere, the part of her able to conjure up Mozart on the piano, the part of her able to give gifts and make us a dollhouse from scratch and teach us checkers. This is me locked into the kitchen table at Grandma Ruth's penthouse apartment in Fort Lauderdale thinking about checkers and Mozart and dollhouses and waiting for Grandma to give in, and this is a grandmother refusing to give in, and so this is two women sitting at a kitchen table in Florida in 1977 divided by a plateful of cooked carrots, not giving in. This is rumble of thunder.

This is me at my grandmother's kitchen table in a penthouse apartment in Fort Lauderdale unable to entertain the remotest possibility of eating another bite of those carrots. This is me sitting tiny and terrified in an oversized white wooden chair in a white tiled kitchen that smelled of clean towels and that morning's French toast. This is a kitchen magically sprouting fresh Florida produce, a voluminous glass bowl of fruit sunning itself on the window ledge all day, bearing continuously. This is me not seeing any fruit there just now. This is me furtively catching sight of the stove, the fridge, the sink. This is me seeing the garbage chute.

This is me seeing the beauty of a garbage chute for the first time. This is me seeing the latch of the garbage chute door and seeing salvation. This is me gathering courage from the latch of a garbage chute door. This is the latch of a garbage chute door transmuting into a harbinger of death and oblivion to all unwanted, unnecessary helpings. This is a helping of cooked carrots on Grandma Ruth's luncheon china losing steam. This is a too-big serving of cooked carrots losing the fight, begging to be let go. This is me begging to be let go. This is vacation. This is me remembering vacation. This is a helping of cooked carrots getting ready for departure. This is a grandmother, unsuspecting.

This is a skinny, freckle-faced five-year-old girl staring down her 58-year-old grandmother in a kitchen in Florida with a plateful of cooling cooked carrots between them. This is the color of the carrots, a violent, overripe orange, and this is the smell of the carrots, the smell of fertilizing, feculent living things, an earthy smell, the smell of the dirt hiding under a fallen log, a not altogether enticing vegetable smell.

This is a girl deciding between rejections, her body's or her grandma's and choosing her grandmother's. This is a throat opening up in real earnest, this is an honest throat opening up despite Grandma's unyielding grimace. This is a rumble of thunder.

This is me staring at my helping of carrots telling Grandma that I wouldn't be eating them. This is a grandmother hearing a bald, bold statement from her granddaughter. This is a grandmother looming, leering in her seat. This is a granddaughter rising imperceptibly from her seat. This is big sis making herself scarce when she sees the tumult unfolding from the kitchen.

This is a five-year-old girl rigid at the kitchen table divided by good behavior and revolt, and this is a girl choosing revolt. This is two hours spent in the kitchen with Grandma and this is a five-year-old girl on vacation in Florida choosing revolt. This is an unsuspecting grandmother. This is a garbage chute. These are cooked carrots. This is revolt. This is a granddaughter seeing the beauty of a garbage chute. This is a stern German grandmother who never threw away a thing. This is a rumble of thunder. This is a rumble of thunder.