driving home tonight sucked. it was wet, the other drivers were really aggressive, and the dishes served up by tonight's deejays were bland at best (except for gomez's "see the world," which carried me home).

i pulled into the driveway, turned off the radio, gathered up my crap and got out of the car. and then, smelling the rain, i stopped.

and i remembered my grandmother.

it takes a certain kind of rain, a certain kind of smell, to bring her back. it doesn't have to be a steady rain; a wet mist is sometimes enough. i can't explain what it is, but tonight had it.

i've been meaning to write about grandma for a while (she died when i was thirteen). now, according to my mother and my uncle, she was as fucked-up a mother to her children as a mother can be. and i believe them. but something odd happened. she may have been a terrible mother, but she was a goddam fabulous grandmother to me.

friday night, 4 pm: cocktail hour. she'd make my grandpa (arnold reuben, son of the inventor of the reuben sandwich, and all-around sad sack) his drink (1/4 glass scotch, 3/4 glass water). then she'd make her drink (7/8 glass scotch, splash of water). my treat was a glass of ginger ale and a plate of town house crackers and philadelphia cream cheese. i'd bring grandpa his drink on a tray, and i'd always take a sip, and i hated it -- and i can't drink scotch or whiskey to this day, sadly.

then i'd take my "cocktail" into the bedroom and watch Emergency! while grandma made dinner (filet of lemon sole, with kraft mac & cheese on the side). the next day we'd do errands, heading down to the parking garage to her station wagon. i have such fond memories of that garage -- the smell of gasoline, the feel of the modern concrete pillars under my hands, the look of her wiry, aged hands grasping the steering wheel, tightly.

and we'd have our day out. fish from the fish market. everything else from the food emporium. if i was good, a toy from the toystore. lunch at lord & taylor. back home, where i played make-believe in the living room, pretending i was named stephanie, after the sister of the boy i had a crush on then, whose name i've since forgotten. i'd make up dance routines, with her as my audience. and that was it -- i had an audience. she paid attention. and in my world, people, in my little world that was EVERYTHING TO ME.

and the thing grandma and i used to joke about was the rain. invariably -- and i'm not joking -- whenever i went to visit, it rained. i still remember the sheen of the wetness on the slate steps of her building's forecourt; the gaudy multicolored lights in the goldfish ponds shimmering as the dirty water danced around the raindrops; the smell of relentless rain through the screen in her kitchen window. it became "our thing."

fittingly, it rained the day she died, and it rained the day she was cremated. when we went back to her apartment after the service, i remember standing in her kitchen, leaning against the chocolate-brown convection oven, crying. the wife of my grandmother's husband's son (long story) came up to me -- this symbol of all that was wrong in our family -- and patted my shoulder, telling me to stop crying. i looked at her square in the face, and removed her hand from my shoulder.

"no. she was my grandmother, and i'll cry if i want to."

(i actually said that.)

and then i turned my back to her, leaned my head on the wet window screen, and sniffed.