Page 7
“It’s what the note says, Mom,” Mat sassed, giving me that pre-teen tone that I was stupid.
“I don’t care what it says, you don’t say that,” I said tightly.
Oli was jumping up and down. “What does it say? What does it say!”
He tried to rip the paper from his brother’s hands, but Mat played keep-away with a shout of protest.
“—my dumb BLEEP brother, Sparky, who can’t string lights to save his BLEEP life.”
What was that other bleep? I ground my teeth as Mat smirked at me. Clearly, there was another bad word.
Wait….
Nonna didn’t use crass language. My father used to say that she wasn’t above making him suck on a bar of soap for using potty language, which meant they never used the truly bad words.
I frowned and looked toward the back stairs. Was my grandmother senile?
“Be good boys for your mama and bisnonna. We’re watching you, and we don’t want to file a bad report with the Big Guy. Don’t be BLEEP-holes or you’ll be sorry.”
There was no way my grandmother had written that.
I grabbed the note while my boys turned their attention to the packages. I scanned it, confirming two asses and one f-bomb. What was she thinking? That she would bond with adolescent boys by using bad words? This wasn’t like her at all!
It isn’t her handwriting.
Chewing my lip, I was lost in a spiral until the squeals of my boys broke my attention.
“A Nintendo Switch 2!” Mat held the box over his head, screaming in delight.
A piece of my soul died.
Video games.
My grandmother bought the boys freaking video games! Yes, I had tablets for them, but those were locked so that they could only play educational games, read eBooks, or listen to audiobooks.
“Nonna!” I roared, my voice carrying over the shouts and giddy energy of the twins.
They paused, their light brown eyes going wide.
The stairs creaked. “I’m right here, ragazza. No need to shout.”
I marched across the kitchen and shoved the piece of paper at her. She looked around me, and a devious smile cut across her lips.
“Ah, the elf came,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.
“Nonna, a word,” I hissed.
But my grandmother ambled around me to see the fun. “Oh! There’s two of them.”
The note of surprise in her voice was genuine.
I looked at the cramped, messy handwriting and back at her.
“They brought us presents, bisnonna,” Oli yammered.
“Show me!” Nonna scuttled to the table, peering as though she couldn’t see properly, when her eyesight was better than mine. “What is it? Some kind of walkie-talkie?”
“It’s a video game!” the boys chanted in unison. They launched into details, both talking at once, to explain every cool feature of their new toys.
