"You did all kinds of fun stuff. Grandma told me all about it. Sarah tells me too. We do lots of the same things in our house."
"Did she tell you about the Cod Liver Oil?" Suzie asked.
I made a sour face. "God! Do you want me to gag?"
"What's that?" Karen asked.
"It was terrible poison we were forced to endure that was supposed to cure something. I don't even remember what; rickets, someone once said."
"What's rickets?" Karen asked.
We both whooped like a pair of kids. "We don't know, but you can bet we didn't get it!" I answered. That brought on more gales of laughter.
"Sleeping on the floor because we weren't allowed to go to our room; punishment for some crime."
"Sarah made me do that, for forgetting to come home and baby sit!" Karen said it with pride.
"You meanie!" Suzie yelled at me and turned to Karen. "We couldn't even get our pajamas. I slept bare ass . . . pardon, Karen . . . and froze to death."
"I slept on the sofa. . ." Karen said.
"So did Sarah, more than once. She's a peanut. I was too tall to fit."
"But you deserved it, right?"
"And probably more. But no one deserved to have to visit Uncle Ruddie!"
"God, Uncle Ruddie! I'd almost forgotten. We had to dress up and drive to the other side of Providence."
"We spent a whole boring day," Suzie said.
I turned to Karen. "He was this fat old uncle or something we had to visit at least a couple of times a year. He smelled of old pipe tobacco and had a moustache and we had to kiss him."
"He had a tin can by his chair where he'd spit the pipe juice crap."
My turn. "His wife didn't like kids, and our mother was scared we'd break something or embarrass her."
Suzie joined in. "We had to sit with our hands on our laps and pretend to be interested while they talked about people we didn't know. I hated those trips."
"We used to get an ice cream on the way home, if we behaved."
"Yeah, vanilla tasting like pipe tobacco. Yuck!"
"Admit it, Suzie. In spite of Uncle Ruddie we had tons of fun outings."
"Yes, yes. But they weren't all fun. We'd have to go fishing,"
"I liked to fish!"
"Well I didn't, and Dad would make us put our own worm on the hook. And we had to eat the damn thing if we caught one."
"I like fish, especially fresh ones," I said.
Suzie turned to Karen, in mock confidence. "We'd have to murder them and cut them up. They were all bloody and slimy . . ."