Sonsabitches

“Sonsabitches,”
my mothers mother would mutter
and the nails of my father’s
rough tan hand would sting,
sunk deep into my mother’s soft palm.
It was an infamous phrase Nelly mostly used
in the direction of hundreds of bingo operators.

I can’t imagine my father’s mother
ever swore in in his presence:
Her name was Ruth. I called her Mim.
She would have stolen me anything
I wanted from Drug Emporium.
We walked there when she baby-sat me,
in between biscuit baking and dancing
to Michael Jackson videos on the television.
I wanted a soft bunny with a jean jacket.
She slipped it into her purse.

Later, I applied lipstick to Bunny’s small mouth.
When it didn’t come off,
I cried and cried and cried.

When Harry brought Jeane home to meet
his mother I never heard him call Mom,
Ruth cried. With happiness at seeing my
father’s arm around my mother’s small shoulders.
In Ruth, Jeane found another mother.
I’ve wondered about their relationship for years.

My mother gave me the sunflowers in my eyes.
Nelly gave Jeane her panic attacks.
My mother ran into her mother’s doctor in a hospital one night. “You may not remember me, but you gave my mother, Nelly Hugues, medication.” “Medication? Oh, I remember you, but I never gave Nelly meds. Those were sugar pills.”

Ruth gave everyone presents from Jomar.
“Oh, yeah, I really thought you’d like this,”
with a large ceramic turtle in her hands.

My mother teaches second grade and hugs everyone.
My father has never told me he loves me,
but after my first teenage relationship
went down the drain, we made a mess
of pots and pans on the kitchen floor,
banging on them and giggling.

Ruth was unable to watch me
by the time I reached big kid school.
My mother followed me there, from teaching kindergarten
at Bright Beginnings to third grade at St. Anselm.
My father visited Ruth in the nursing home
every Wednesday. She watched Highlander.
Soon, she didn’t know his name.

When I think back as far as I can,
my first memory is in a room
in the back of my mother’s parents’ apartment.
There is a trunk filled with odds and ends.
I have selected a tiny turtle figurine.
It is smooth and we have fallen in love.
Grandmom Nelly says I can have it.
He is warm from hiding in the cave of my palm.

Nelly and Ruth both died before
I was old enough to ask them
the questions I ask my parents today,
hoping for a glimmer of
grandmother-voice to peak through.
I’m not sure who’s responsible
for taking away old people
from the realm of the living,
but precedent requires
I refer to them as
“Sonsabitches.”