When your hugs don’t bruise me/happy birthday Aunt Tonya

I called to wish you happy birthday. Your gratitude tumbled out the receiver, spit-covered and sweet like Now-and-Laters.

“Thanks for calling, Pink. I love you.”

You never said those things to me, growing up. Nine years and two surgeries must have done its number on you. The doctors must have taken out your ugly along with the cancer, fixed it with the hysterectomy. Or maybe just the pain. It’s hard to picture your house without the ashtray smell, your pajamas without bloodstains. Your love without the headlock.

I close my eyes and see you on the other end of the phone line: first day of fifty-six, skin aflame from some new allergy to everything. Doctor says no shellfish. You eat it anyway.

What if I hopped on a plane, cooked you up a crab boil like back in the day? I could lay down the newspaper, bust out those little wooden hammers we never bother to use. I’ll watch you suck the Old Bay out your cuts, slurp down roe the color of egg yolk. You’ll smile that toothless smile of yours. I’ll slip you Benadryl before sleep, a cherry-flavored secret. I’ll be the family we weren’t, back then. 

Author:

Moriah Katz

Moriah Katz is a Black/Jewish writer. Her work explores the imprint of race, gender, and sexuality on the human experience, and can be found in Stellium Literary Magazine, DeifyCbr.com, Orange Peel Literary Magazine, and the Queer26. She is the current non-fiction editor at Stellium Literary Magazine, and forever lover of good food. She holds a degree in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz.