A Memoir by Beth Ruggiero Bell

The best and worst job I ever had was cutting my Italian grandfather’s toenails when he could no longer do it himself.

Nonno called me to his house one day and said he had a deal for me. He kept it simple: “You cut,” he said, pointing to his feet. “I pay.” I had never seen his bare feet before. I felt strangely honored.

It wasn’t an easy job. His toenails were tough and mean like him, and I had to spend my first paycheck on a pair of professional clippers from our local Sally Beauty Supply. Even then, shards of toenail would fling through the air, occasionally hitting me in the face or getting caught in my hair.

He paid me $20 a session. I was a hard-up college kid at the time, so I accepted it. But truthfully, I would have done it for free. Before then, when I thought of him, I mostly recalled how he would explode at my Nonna at family meals, his fists banging on the table, spilling our drinks and rattling our silverware and nerves. Now when I think of him, I remember how delicate his ankle felt resting across my knee and the surprising softness of his heels. 

“You do good job,” he told me once.

About two years into our partnership, he fell and broke his ankle. The injury turned into gangrene, and the doctor had to amputate his leg from the knee down.

“Good news,” Nonno told me the first time I saw him after the surgery. “One less foot to cut.” And he reduced my pay to ten bucks.

*   *   *

Beth Ruggiero Bell is a veteran English teacher and married mother of two boys who aims to write candidly and vulnerably about the complexities of modern parenting and relationships. Her personal essays and flash nonfiction have been published most recently in Newsweek US, Newsweek Japan, and The New York Times (Tiny Love Stories).