Pink House
My grandmother lived in a pink house. Outside and much of the inside. I loved it. I never asked her why, but I guess she loved pink. She also had a red vintage car. I don’t remember what kind. Her house was a time capsule, and I loved being stuck in it.
Walnuts to crack and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews in the living room. Mallomars in the kitchen drawer with a slide top. Lenders bagels in the freezer. Sugar in my hot Lipton tea. She was a caretaker. She loved having me there.
I rode a bicycle with training wheels through the house because I was too embarrassed to do it in the driveway. The front lawn was my football field. The garage door my tennis court. The backyard my baseball field. The pink house my solace.
My mom’s old room was up the stairs, but these were not just regular stairs. They were behind a random door that you thought was a closet. Up I went into her past. And in those rooms there were closets that connected to more closets. I had dreams and nightmares of those closets for years. There was a window seat.
I always stayed in the bedroom across from my grandmother. We shared a bathroom. The shower had jets at all levels, so did the bathtub. Mink coats were in every closet. Moth balls. Grandma. Pink house.
She put a rail on my bed so I wouldn’t fall out. The bed wasn’t more than two feet off the ground. I still miss my light blue blanket from her house. I had my toys in a laundry basket in the corner of the room. I played with them years after I was too old because they carried memories in them.
My Nerf football was shedding. No one sat in the other living room, where the piano was. There were these two lights near the front door with domed covers that I am still happy I never broke. There was a three-season porch that felt more like a greenhouse. There were two small ponds. I remember everything.
The basement was dank. There was a door to a door. I only had nightmares about the doors. There was a small creek that ran in between my grandmother’s house and the neighbor’s. Cars rode by in front of my football field all day. I didn’t care as I threw myself another bomb and dove to catch it in the end zone. Only-children games.
Her telephones changed over the years from rotary to ones with big buttons that my dad kept bringing her. Her eyesight got worse and worse. I used to love to make calls on the rotary phone. It had such a nice rhythm and pace to dial. Kippered herring waiting in the fridge. Just the right amount of cream cheese. Just the right amount of toasting. She knew everything.
Tea snackered with white sugar. Danish sugar cookie tins. Bench seating in the kitchen. Why did I sell this house? Low carpet. Shag carpet. Linoleum floors. Pink cabinets. Pink house.
The sliding doors to the den. The sharp cold of the garage. The hall bathroom. The formal dining room where I had more than twenty Thanksgivings. And then I could have no more because she was gone. And I was left the pink house that I was too broken to deal with.
© Jonathan Greene, July 26, 2026
