Just off Grandma's dining room was a glass sun porch. Here there was a very ornate wrought-iron table, painted white. The matching chairs had thick cushions. Sometimes, the fold-out card table went up on the sun porch, and my aunts and uncles played bridge or cribbage until hours after my bed time.

I played cards with Grandma, too. We played a game called King's Corner, the object of which was to end up with no cards left in your hand. I won a round or two, after hints and reminders from Grandma about missed plays. But she won just as frequently, laying down her last card, throwing her thin hands in the air and declaring with a little smile, "Oh! I'm out!"

I had a little red cupboard on the sun porch. Inside were plastic teacups and paper plates, crayons and tablets of blank, white paper. As I set out these things according to some imaginary scene, my dad and my grandmother talked away the afternoon, drinking from cold, wet glasses that dripped onto little, flowered cocktail napkins.