Written by Barbara Reese Yager
Every morning, Mommie sits on the hard kitchen counter stool and stares out the window
toward the mountain while I get a bowl for Rice Krispies and milk. Then, I leave for the bus stop.
Every afternoon, she still sits on the stool. Every night she sits in Daddy’s big red leather chair
and stares at the television. My job is picking a TV channel without Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra,
or Andy Williams crooning Over the Rainbow. When I fail, she sobs because it is the name of our
boat and our plane and our beach house.
Every night she drives us to Richard’s Hamburger Stand, a short, pink, concrete block building
owned by Richard and his sister Gilda. Every night it’s the same order: a hot dog with relish,
one hamburger, and French fries with salt and ketchup. Two small root beers. Mommie never
tires of talking to Richard or Gilda. I read Nancy Drew by harsh fluorescent light.
Every week we drive into town to Dr. Brau, our family doctor. Mommie goes in while I sit on the
buttery brown leather bench in the waiting room. I bring The Bobbsey Twins.
Every Friday Mommie picks me up at school to drive across New Jersey farmland and through
the Holland Tunnel. When the high whine and hazy gasoline smell and ivory subway tiles end,
she pulls over to the first peddler’s cart for roasted chestnuts and soft salty pretzels. At the end
of the Long Island Parkway, Aunt Doris envelopes Mommie at the front glass door. In the tiny
pink kitchen, Mommie and Auntie drink coffee and smoke Parliaments while I play with Cousin
Marianne’s old Marie Alexander dolls in the lower rec room, and read Anne of Green Gables.
Mommie cries here, too.
Someone comes from Daddy’s car dealership to drive our blue Cadillac convertible away.
Someone else comes for the keys to the beach house. The neighbor calls about the pool’s
green water. Mommie doesn’t have money to clean and fill the pool. There are no pool parties.
No endless bottles of Coke and Fanta Orange and Seagram’s Ginger Ale. Mommie cleans our
neighbors’ houses. I cut their grass. Mommie cries.
The furniture in the guest bedroom leaves for a college dorm room. The gold charm bracelet,
the square Omega watch with four diamonds, and her diamond ring leave for Bixler’s, America’s
oldest jewelry store. Cash in hand, Mommie cries.
I escape to the backyard to sleep under the pink pool cabana on a redwood lounge. Every
morning a half dozen poodle puppies push out the aluminum screen door and scamper through
the bottom of the rose bushes, skirt my sandbox, fly under the swings to skid to a full stop at the
shallow end of the long turquoise pool. They belly slide onto the first pool step to lick the dirty
water and cool their bloated tummies. I close Cinderella to call, “Puppies, puppies, cookies,
cookies.” The rush of little legs causes the chocolate and vanilla and apricot fur to fly and with a
large breathe puppies hurl themselves up to wiggle and wag their tiny pink tongues smothering
me to heaven.
Towards the end of the summer, Mommie calls me to the kitchen counter.
“School will start soon,” she says. “There is no money for school clothes. You need a winter
coat that fits, skirts and sweaters, underwear and slips. I am going to sell the puppies.”
I stare and stare some more. What can I say? I go to my room, gently shut the door, and slip
under the cool covers to cry silently into my pillow. I do not go when called for dinner. When
Mommie goes to bed and shuts her door, I creep into the kitchen and curl around all I love in the
world.
One to two in the afternoon is Mommie’s nap time. On a soft. warm fall Saturday afternoon, I sit
on the back porch reading Heidi. When the light fades, I go inside, but Mommie’s door is closed.
I knock gently and silently cross the soft blue carpet. Mommie is lying on the blue hydrangea
print chaise lounge. Her arm is cold, so I pull up the doggie-patterned quilt. It’s almost dark
when I walk next door to Mrs. Mearhoff’s. I stand under the white columns to ring the bell at the
double doors. The Westminster chimes drown out Mrs. Mearhoff’s footsteps. I’m startled when
one of the big wood doors opens.
“Well, hello Barbara. What are you doing here?” Mrs. Mearhoff smiles.
“Mommie is still sleeping. Could you come talk to her?”
Mrs. Mearhoff looks at her watch. It is twilight; almost five o’clock.
She looks back at me, “Of course, yes, yes, right now,” and pulls the door shut behind her.
We walk over the thick green lawn and enter through the empty garage.
Mrs. Mearhoff points to the living room, “Why don’t you wait here, Barbara?” Mommie says we
sit in the Living Room on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I do as I’m told. I sit on the
edge of the armless rose silk chair.
I can’t hear Mrs. Mearhoff’s footfalls on the thick carpeting. The phone chimes; someone is
making a call. Mrs. Mearhoff comes back, sits close, and puts her arm around me but says
nothing.
I ask, “Is Mommie sad today?”
Mrs. Mearhoff pats my thigh.
.
Barbara Reese Yager writes flash fiction that explores the powerful emotions we wish we never knew and life moments we can never forget. Barbara’s work has appeared in anthologies of the Personal Story Publishing Project and Beyond Words Press. She is President of the Charlotte Writers Club; her work is at barbarareeseyager.com