whatever_will_sustain_us raze after massaging cerumen into patio chairs to melt the snow that covers them, trying and failing to make myself breakfast in someone else's kitchen, running into an old grade school teacher who doesn't remember me, watching my stepfather's attempt at a heartfelt gesture crumble after he learns the duvets he's bought are thinner than he thought they were, and fielding an angry phone call from a disney executive, i sit on the grass behind the house that used to belong to my temporary_inherited_grandmother. my dad sits beside me. across from us are two girls who look about ten. sisters. i'm sure of it. behind them, a middle-aged woman. a white blanket beneath her backside. she has short hair. she looks miserable. one of the girls giggles. "my grandma's taken a new lover," she says. "why do people do that?" my dad smiles. playful. "when you get older," he says, "you only care about one thing, and that's 'gimme money, money, money!'" i try to craft a more thoughtful response to her question without talking over her head. "sometimes," i say, "the kind of love somebody needs is so varied, they have to get it from more than one person. or they really like the way someone loves them, but it's not enough to sustain them." there's something hovering in front of me. black text on a yellowed page. names of the woman's current lovers. there must be at least a dozen. if her face is anything to go by, none of them have made her happy. "did your daughter play hockey at all?" my dad asks the frowning grandmother. "she's kuslov avon," the woman says. curt. as if he's offended her. my dad and i exchange confused looks. "i don't think that's a name i know," i say. my eyes drift to a long lingua suffused with crushed stones. i know that path by heart. it leads to the open road. but it won't take me where i want to go. i'd have to swim the strait that feeds two of our great lakes. and i think i could trust my body to beat back the rapids and get me there in one piece. i really do. 220724 what's it to you? who go blather from