A WEEK BEFORE MY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY, I sat with my Grandmother at her kitchen table. With liver-spotted hands, she pressed gherkins into brine solution. With heavy oven mitts, I sealed the hot jars after she finished. A small pyramid of mason jars stood on the table between us, waiting to be processed in the canner. The smell of vinegar and pickling spice dominated the kitchen.
I sat gingerly on the wooden chair and didn’t make eye contact with her, my mood vinegar. I had bitched about the chore—‘back talked,’ as she said. I might’ve broken a lamp.
She’d broken out the wooden spoon, a punishment I hadn’t endured since my childhood. I contemplated darkly that maybe spankings counted as abuse.
My Grandmother, though I’m sure she noticed my dark mood, didn’t comment. Instead, she handed me jars. I squeezed them shut. I stewed in my seat and favoured my left buttock.
I was often angry at sixteen, and not always capable of identifying why. That was the year after my grandfather’s death. That was the year my parents finalized their divorce. I don’t know if either was the cause, but they were easy scapegoats.
I recall the school counselor’s expression melting from faux concern to faux understanding. He stroked his bleached-blond goatee and nodded sagely at the ceiling fan. “Oh, your parents got ... divorced.”
Recreation, at sixteen, was a Discman and heavy black headphones that made my ears ache after twenty minutes. I listened to whatever music my parents wouldn’t approve of.
My Grandmother, I’m sure, knew that if I hadn’t been pickling with her, I’d be shut away in my room. Lights off. Music blaring.
She’d learned how to bully me into having fun.
The afternoon sun made my Grandmother’s pickles glow like molten gold. I shook the mason jars as I set them down and watched the gherkins and garlic swirl, nuclear-yellow snow globes. I stared out of the kitchen window, at fat bumblebees bouncing against the glass and languishing atop the raspberry bush. I recall dandelion heads, yellow and white, polka-dotting her shaggy lawn.
When my Grandmother slowly got up from her chair to place the laden jars in boiling water, I remembered to be angry. I adopted a scowl and screwed the last jar lid on so tight, I imagined she’d never get it open. My Grandmother put a gnarled hand on my hair and said, “Sharpie’s in the drawer.”
My Grandmother creaked from the kitchen. She moved more slowly than she had in my youth. Her once-bleached hair was now mousy grey. She also wore more cardigans and sweaters, though she never complained about being cold.
I used the red felt marker to adorn each jar’s brass lid with the date. I was also supposed to write a ‘P’ for pickles—omitting it was my minor rebellion.
When my Grandmother returned, she plunked a new mason jar in front of me, and held its twin in her left hand. The liquid inside the jar caught the setting sun. I finally looked at her. “I have to label more?”
Silently, she unscrewed the lid of her glass and lifted the threaded mouth to her lips. She gulped it like water, and then motioned for me to do the same.
I sprayed the liquid across her pyramid of pickle jars, as the corn whisky scraped down my throat. My eyes streamed at the shock of hard liquor, and my Grandmother laughed a hearty, throaty laugh at my expression.
“Happy birthday,” she grinned. “I didn’t want to die before you had your first drink.”
“Ugh, what is it?”
“White Lightning, boy. Granny’s own moonshine. Kind of feels like full circle, doesn’t it? Finish your jar. It’s good for you.”
My Grandmother and I sipped in silence. That’s the gift I remember—a toast at the kitchen table over mason jars, to sixteen years and sixteen more. She didn’t make me drink the whole jar.