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270 mama rose Mama Rose Ann Hood Memoir (1999) My grandmother Mama Rose stood four feet ten inches, had ten children, twenty-one grandchildren, flaming red hair until the day she died at the age of seventy-five, and liked Elvis Presley, her hometown of Naples in Italy, ‘‘As the World Turns,’’ and going into the woods to collect wild mushrooms. What she didn’t like was me. This wouldn’t have been a problem except that she lived with my family and so every day became a battleground for us. Although my parents had technically bought our house from her back in 1962 when we moved back to Rhode Island, Mama Rose never really let it go. She had, after all, lived there since she was two and, except for three years in Italy recovering from a bout of scarlet fever, she never lived anywhere else. Despite her limited time in ‘‘the old country,’’ Mama Rose acquired a thick Italian accent sprinkled with mispronounced words, her favorite being ‘‘Jesus Crest!’’ As an only child, the small three-bedroom house had suited her fine when she grew up. Until the day she died she had the same bedroom she’d had as a girl. The only changes were in her roommates: first her husband, then after he died her youngest daughter, June, and after June got married and our family moved in, I became her roommate. Already slightly afraid of her, I begged for a different bedroom. ‘‘Where do you want to go?’’ my mother would ask me, exasperated. My father was in the Navy and after moving us back to Rhode Island was promptly shipped off to Cuba, an assignment that did not allow families. My mother had to find room for herself , my ten-year-old brother and me, who was five. Upstairs, my great-grandmother was still in the room she’d occupied for the last sixty years. My mother moved back into her old bedroom, the same one she’d shared with her five sisters. And my brother was in the tiny former storage room that my three uncles shared as children. ‘‘Of course,’’ Mama Rose offered, ‘‘you could sleep there.’’ ‘‘There’’ was a beat-up green couch in the kitchen that Auntie June had slept on until her father died and she moved in with Mama Rose. To me, that couch held nightmares and ghosts. My strongest memory of it was when I was three and my Uncle Brownie died. Mama Rose lay there all day screaming and pulling her hair. I eyed the green couch and mumbled, ‘‘No thanks.’’ The nightmares came anyway. As I tried to sleep in Mama Rose’s bed, the voices of my mother, my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my visiting aunts in the kitchen right outside the door told stories into the night. The stories ‘‘Mama Rose’’ by Ann Hood originally appeared in Italian Americana magazine, copyright 1999 by Ann Hood; reprinted by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. All rights reserved. Ann Hood 271 were about children who spontaneously burst into flames, babies born with gills, and bad women in our neighborhood who put curses on people. Before everyone went to bed, they traded stories about the ghosts of Uncle Brownie and Auntie Ann, my namesake who had died years earlier at the age of twenty-three having her wisdom teeth removed. Auntie Ann usually came to them in the form of a beautiful bird. But Uncle Brownie appeared as a full-fledged ghost, wandering around our house whistling happily, kissing foreheads, and smiling as he flew out the window. Finally everyone would go home and Mama Rose would come to bed. Already terrified, I’d press my trembling self close to her. ‘‘Jesus Crest,’’ she’d say, ‘‘move over. I can’t believe this girl. She doesn’t give me any room.’’ Then she would shove me to my side of the bed where I stayed, wide-eyed, waiting to spontaneously combust or for Uncle Brownie to put his cold ghost lips against my head. Most nights, after I finally fell asleep, I would wake up Mama Rose and me by letting out a bloodcurdling scream. ‘‘Jesus Crest,’’ she’d say. ‘‘You almost gave me a heart attack. What is wrong with this girl anyway?’’ When left to babysit my brother, younger cousin, and me, Mama Rose fried thick steaks for them and a hamburger patty for me. ‘‘I want a steak too,’’ I...

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