Part one of three
My name is Sonny and I grew up with my grandparents in an upper middle class neighborhood. The few friends and relatives my grandparents had or bothered with all said I look just like my grandfather did when he was my age.
My grandparents are the only family I’ve ever known. So as far as I’m concerned my grandparents are my parents. However, my biological mother and father were an enigma to me. Consequently, I couldn’t help being curious about them. I’ve always known my mother was my grandparent’s daughter.
But all my grandparents would tell me about her was, ”Patty was very young when she had you.” According to them their daughter was just too young and immature to be a mother so they sent her away to a private girl’s boarding school.
However, I wanted to know more about her. So I’d eavesdrop whenever I’d hear them talking about her. Because of my snooping I learned that my mother occasionally drank and smoked marijuana. I also learned my mother wouldn’t identify my father to the authorities or the priest that ran the strict Catholic girl’s school she was forced to attend!
I usually don’t pay much attention to my grandmother when she’s yakking on the phone. But this one time I overheard her talking to someone sort of quietly in her secretive sounding voice. So I stopped what I was doing so I could hear what she was saying. I heard her say to whomever it was she was talking to, “I don’t think Patty will ever tell anyone who Sonny’s father is!”
Then I heard my grandmother say, ”Patty said she’s only loved one man and that was Sonny’s father. And he’s the only man she‘s ever been with!” There was a brief pause then I heard my grandmother say, “I hope Sonny and Patty really find each other someday and bond. Because they’re so much alike, they truly belong together.”
I knew my mother and grandfather had a big falling out after she had me and she was forced to go away to that boarding school. After Patty finished her education my grandfather thought she should come home and live with us.
But Patty refused to come home. She got a job as a real estate agent and her own apartment instead. Because of the differences between my mother and grandfather; I hardly ever saw my mother as a child.
To make matters worse, my grandfather disapproved of my mother’s lifestyle. Because as he put it, she still acts like an immature teenager that won’t listen to reason.
Patty told me once she may have given birth to me but she didn’t consider herself to be my mother. Consequently, on the very rare occasions when my mother would come to visit my grandmother; she’d just say “Hi.” to me. That was extent of our interactions until I reached sixteen and started to mature. That’s when Patty seemed to notice me and she started paying attention to me.
But it wasn‘t the kind of attention a mother pays to her teenage son. It was more like a big sister fooling around with her kid brother or an older woman flirting with a teenage boy. Whatever her reasoning for treating me the way she did was I really didn‘t know or care because I loved it.