Glitter and Glue

by Kelly Corrigan

Or so I thought. What do I know? I know that my mother loves sauerkraut and anchovies and pearl onions. I know she prefers mashed potatoes from a box, and when she wants to, she can peel an orange in one go. I know she likes her first drink to be vodka—one full jigger, over ice, with a lemon rind—and then she downgrades to Chardonnay, which she pours into the same glass over the same ice with the same piece of lemon floating on top, one less dish to wash. I know her favorite movie is either Gone with the Wind or Pretty Woman, whichever comes to mind first. She considers house pets and clothes you can’t wash in a machine and changing lip colors with the seasons ridiculous. I know she doesn’t think fathers need to know every single thing about their children. She feels her best on her knees after Communion and thinks too many people treat church like a fashion show or a social outing, and she has no words for the Christmas and Easter Catholics except That’s between them and the good Lord above. I know she has an old silver rosary under her pillow, where she can find it in the night when she starts fretting about something that wouldn’t have a chance against her in the light of day, and next to her rosary is her huffa-puffa, for her asthma, which gets worse in the summer and when she worries. Maybe what I don’t know is that she secretly lives for a good love story. Maybe, like my dad says, she’s a romantic, something I’ve always dismissed as biased.