Mothers

She remembers when she was little, around five years old, playing in the front room early every morning. The radio was her teacher, with songs and commercials at her fingertips. She was acting them out…especially the ones with catchy phrases like, “You wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pep-so-dent!”

Her mother comes out into the front room, bleary-eyed and yawning from her bedroom, wrapping her robe about all four feet eleven of her. Annie reaches for a knob deftly to turn the radio off, but it was never on. Her copper-red hair is in rollers, she stands there scratching her head. A puzzled look comes across her face as she leans in with her glasses hanging on the edge of her nose like a hawk, turning the radio on, then off, on, then off.

Rita was always singing, always making little voices, and remembering the nuances of voice actors like Bae Benaderet from “Fibber McGee and Molly.” She acted them all out by herself, singing and humming the music parts, too.

She loved to perform and entertain anyone who would listen. All her sisters and their boyfriends were instructed to sit in the parlor on Friday evenings. She led them to their seats, in the chairs, on the arms of the sofa, or on cushions on the floor. They were instructed to sit and listen when she sang a new song. While hooking them in with the first one, she threw at least four to five more songs in one sitting. When the applause began, she immediately went right into the next song.

Once, a teenage boyfriend of her oldest sister commented on Rita’s large, beautiful, brown eyes. Without skipping a beat, young Rita opened those big, beautiful, brown eyes wide and blinked over and over, sending him into hysterics at her flirtatious glances. “What a doll,” he said. “She is such a doll.”