How to Love an American Man by Kristine Gasbarre Page B

eye. When we’re seated again I rub her shoulder gently, and she half looks at me with a closed-mouth smile. I’m trying , her expression tells me. We both are.
    W HEN WE ARRIVE back at her house I remove my heels at the door to avoid tracking dirt across white carpets. The smell of garlic and onions and sauce bubbling on the stove invites us inside. I have to give Grandma credit—she’s faced the day with as much courage as she could harvest, going so far as to take a stab at Grandpa’s impossible spaghetti sauce—with meatballs. “Grandma,” I swoon as the aroma from the kitchen pulls me with greater force, “this place smells incredible .”
    She’s pulling wineglasses down from the kitchen cabinet, making two rows of six goblets. “I’m a little worried it won’t be ready when everybody gets here in a couple hours. This was always Grandpa’s job.”
    â€œLet me taste it,” I tell her, taking a teaspoon from the drawer to dip it delicately inside the pot like Grandpa used to do. “Oh, good heavens , Grandma.” (At some moments I now find myself employing her sayings in all their grandmotherly glory.) I drop my spoon in the sink and take out a clean one from the drawer. “I think it’s ready now.” She’s giggling silently when I turn to her. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile today. We travel together into the garage, Grandma holding tightly to the railing Grandpa installed for her. The room is in perfect order, with his workshop occupying the left back corner. Since he died I’ve only been out here to fetch drinks from the utility fridge, but I realize it was on purpose that I hadn’t stopped to observe how Grandpa had left his favorite area of the house. Grandma turns around and points back at the screen door we just opened. “Close that,” she says. “I want to show you something.”
    I slide shut the screen door that separates the garage from Grandpa’s office. A piece of string the length of a shoelace drops down, holding a palm-sized silver cutout of Grandpa’s company logo. Grandma’s staring at me with amusement when I turn to her, puzzled. “He did that so we’d know that when the logo’s at eye level, the screen door is closed.”
    â€œAhhh!” I go to the door and open it, watching the pulley disappear into the door frame above it. “Look at that!”
    â€œIsn’t it something? I almost fell through it one day because I thought it was open—you see, it’s hard to see!” She goes to the garage fridge and pulls out a chilled bottle of white wine. “He was always thinking,” she says, more to herself than to me. “There’s no doubt about it, that man was born to be an engineer.”
    I agree with her, surveying the perfectly organized contents of his garage. On the side wall he kept a collection of old-fashioned skeleton keys that he would examine and then duplicate on his machines just to keep his mind occupied when there were no other projects. Hanging here, they take on the feel of an exhibit at a history museum. “Grandma, come here,” I say. “Look at this key—how beautiful.”
    â€œThat one’s from Italy,” she whispers. “You know what to?” I look at her.
    â€œYour great-grandpa’s house.”
    â€œHey, I visited that house when I was in Rome!”
    She beams. “I know.”
    I continue wandering the garage, peering curiously into Grandpa’s shiny tool cabinet, the stacks of company-stamped ashtrays that he kept for posterity and pride, the shelves of nonperishable groceries lined up single-file like soldiers—a fixture for any household that had survived World War II and the Depression. “Hey, Grandma?” She’s following me now, taking in the strength that Grandpa has left on every wall, above every shelf, in every corner. “Can we