Blue Grapes

Two grape arbors and in between, a path and steps leading to the water — actually, to a lower lawn and then the water. I can see my mother sitting in a lawn chair near the arbors, spewing grape skins she had in her mouth. My mother really loved blue grapes and that is why my father, getting the idea from the Italian families in Milford, for whom he did odd plastering and cementing jobs and was paid in “clothes for the children” or an occasional spaghetti lunch, complete with red wine, decided to grow blue grapes for his wife, this probably because he often came home for lunch, having already eaten, with wine on his breath. And so, he set to work driving into the lawn, 4 posts on the left and 4 posts on the right, path to steps in between, and before we knew what these were for, vines and vines of blue grapes were growing across from post to post, and my mother was there, and instead of talking, spewed the grape skins from her mouth, just as every year, or 16 months, occasionally 2 years, she released baby after baby, until at last there were 14 of us.