Full of Grace Read Online Free PDF

said, putting her hand on my arm to hold me in my chair and giving me a supportive squeeze. “I work in a hospital. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I see.”
    I took a deep breath and looked from my mother to my grandmother.
    “Like what?” Nonna said. “How bad could it be that your own children turn their backs on you and dump you in some filthy place?”
    “Uh, could we table this discussion for another time?” I said. “Because, Nonna, you are as healthy as a horse and you’re gonna live to be a thousand years old.”
    “Humph,” she said, obviously unsatisfied with my answer. “ I’m not the one who has to worry here! I have a daughter to take care of me…”
    “And I would never put you in a nursing home!” Connie said.
    “But her daughter has a boyfriend who thinks he knows more than the pope himself, and he thinks it’s fine to put his mother in a nursing home and she agrees with him!”
    “Please, Ma,” Mom said to Nonna. “I worked so hard on this dinner…”
    “What did you do?” Nonna said. “It’s my gravy, my clams, my tomatoes that I grew myself, my basil…”
    “Ma…”
    Big Al wiped his mouth with the dish towel he used instead of a napkin, got up and went to Nonna’s side, leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. “Nobody’s going nowhere, okay?” he said. “We’re a family! Now how about some fish? Huh? I’m starving here! Give Connie a hand, Marianne. That’s a good girl.”
    I felt my temperature rise. Al had chosen Marianne over me to help my mother with dinner all because of Michael and his mother living in a nursing home. It seemed that he used every opportunity, no matter how small, to show his displeasure with me. Sure, I got a nice hello, but after that he went for my throat.
    Regina couldn’t help serve dinner; she had to watch her kids, especially Tony, who might drink all the wine left in the glasses, because, well, that’s just how it was. I put my platform-sandaled foot on top of Nicky’s and pressed down hard, wishing I were wearing cleats instead.
    “Ow!” Nicky hollered.
    “Oh! Excuse me! I’m so sorry,” I said, and turned to Frank, knowing I was being sarcastic but thinking what the hell ? “So Frank? Welcome home. Didn’t you miss all this?”
    Later that night, after the last glass was dried and put away, after the kitchen floor was swept, after Nonna and Connie had gone to take their showers, and after Big Al had smoked Robustos with Nicky and Frank inthe backyard and finally turned in for the night, Nicky took Marianne home.
    When I felt the heavy silence of the house and was reasonably certain everyone was finished with the day, I crept from my room and bumped into Frank in the kitchen. He was watching CNN on mute and dipping a piece of biscotti in a glass of anisette.
    “Oh!” I said. “I didn’t know you were in here.”
    “Yeah, I just finished pumping up the air mattresses and thought I’d check on the outside world…you know, make sure it’s still there.”
    “Yeah,” I said, inspecting the contents of the refrigerator. “Make sure there’s no nuclear war dropping bombs on I- 95 and that we’re not stuck here for all of eternity, right?” I poured myself a glass of skim milk. “Where’s the biscotti?”
    “In the cookie jar over there.” Frank turned to me, smiled and said, “Sit down, Grace, talk to me for a minute. Then I gotta crash. I’m exhausted.”
    I reached in the jar and pulled out two pieces of biscotti—one that was dipped in chocolate and one that was dipped in chocolate and then coconut.
    “Well, it’s a long drive, especially with three kids. I only had to drive from Charleston. Know what? If I had a cookie jar in my kitchen, it would be crawling with bugs.”
    “You wouldn’t have a cookie jar with actual cookies in it.”
    His words were beyond the obvious, but the remark stung a little. Did my brother think that I was obsessed with my weight, or that I wasn’t interested