Enough

For as long as I can remember, I’ve flown from Sacramento to Los Angeles to spend summers with my grandparents. I’d get on the flight alone, my mother waving at me as I was ushered down the ramp. When the airline PSA still existed, I was given little metal wings and a bag full of candy bars and comics. The stewardesses were impeccably dressed then, royal blue polyester hugging their curves like skin. My favorite times were when my grandpa was at the gate waiting for me. He played tricks—hid behind a row of seats or held up a hand-drawn sign with my name on it. On our way home, we stopped by Carl’s Jr. “Anything you want,” he’d say. The smorgasbord continued for the whole visit. He stocked the pantry and the fridge with Twinkies, fruit snacks, Lucky Charms, SpaghettiOs, mac and cheese, sodas, ice cream—anything I asked for. My grandmother, in stark contrast, was always on a diet, writing calories on little scraps of paper, never letting her total for the day exceed twelve hundred. She had notebooks full of numbers, tallies that never stopped. Every entry was a mouthful of something she could never have as much of as she wanted. From the pantry shelves, my cousin and I scooped greedy handfuls of cellophane-wrapped treats, while Grandma avoided them, only occasionally asking us for a small bite. A taste. Sometimes it happened: I would hear the metal scrape of the scale being dragged from under the sink. And then: “Sarah, come back here for a minute.”