Closets Ivy Lane. Casper, Wyoming. I pick up the sweatshirts, jeans, slacks, undergarments, that lay crumbled, strewn on her chair, on her bed, or piled on the bathroom floor. I sort through the clothes, determining which items need to be washed, which clothes just need to be put back on the hangers in her closet. She does not help me pick up her clothes, and she does not even try to hang them up. I listen as she looks for her cat for the tenth time in fifteen minutes. “Sam, Sam where are you Sam?” “You didn’t let my cat out, did you?” She is panicked. I want to hold her to me, look directly in her empty eyes and say, “No, I didn’t let your cat outside, you are the only one that lets your cat outside, and then you come inside and forget you let your cat outside, and then you look for the cat and drive everyone crazy because you are acting loony. Even though I know it is not your fault, I cannot come to terms with my mother looking like my mother but acting like a willful child, who cannot, or will not even hang up her clothes, who can’t drive, can’t think, can’t remember, can’t be by herself. Stop it mom, please.” Instead of speaking, I fold and tighten my thoughts into a resentful ball and pack them inside my near bursting brain. Would it matter what I said to her? There would be a brief flicker of light in her eyes, and I would begin to hope and imagine that her mind would be able to come out of its safe hiding place and she would be the mother again, and I would be the daughter. I would then sigh with relief, because the death of my father didn’t mean that I would lose my mother at almost precisely the same time. I want to hide until reality disappears. There is plenty of room to hide in the closet’s dark, empty space where Dad’s clothes used to hang. I had taken all his clothes off the hangers (while mom looked for the cat) and given them away. I am sure Dad would not have minded. He had only needed one good suit. Hide and seek. I am a child and my cousins are visiting. The parents left us to our own devices while they are Christmas shopping. We scurry to hide when the counting begins ... 1, 2 .. I open the door to my favorite hiding place, my mother’s closet. It smells faintly of a mix of the perfume she keeps on the dresser. I choose my hiding place in the far corner. Mother’s dresses brush my head as I crawl stealthily toward my hiding place. The gold and silver dresses, the silks she loves to dance in, the skirts she loves to swirl. She especially enjoys being dark haired, blue eyed, and memorable. I imagine her opening the closet, intending to get a favorite gold dress, and finding me instead. She will not be mad at me for being a child whose carelessness may crush her Cinderella slippers or wrinkle her swirling dresses. Her blue eyes, full of life, will fill with love. She will hug me to her and say: “Forget about the gold dress, I have found the most precious thing in the world right here.” I open the closet door and run to find another hiding place. I grow tired of imagining. Gravel crunching in the driveway by the house. I hear the car door open and I run upstairs, into the vacant bedroom. I hear him open the door to the house as I open the closet door. He enters the light of the living room as I enter the dark of the closet. I listen. He does not call my name. He knows I am here, because the children are in the house and I would not leave the children. Mother and child (Holy Infant so tender and mild). I hunch down in the corner of the closet, emitting short soft breaths that escape in rapid heart rocking rhythm. Eyes wide open, hearing everything, hearing nothing, bundled into myself, crouching like a crazy March hare. There is no sound (could have heard a pin drop). I remember my mother’s closet filled with dresses. In my hiding place, there is only one dress, my long, white crystal-sequined wedding dress (You have never looked more beautiful, dear). The satin fabric dance-brushes my body with a cold, light, thin skeletal touch. I open the closet door an inch, a squeak at a time. No sound. I tiptoe downstairs and see my husband (to love honor and cherish) slumped in his chair. His arms hanging limp at his sides, his legs stretched on the floor in front of him, his head touching the side of his shoulder, like the raggedy patch straw man that stands sentry in the garden. I watch the back of his head and will him not to move. I am safe. The scarecrow is asleep. Billings, Montana Home. I hang up my clothes. Suitcase to closet, one item at a time. All the other closets in the house are empty; my children have moved on, taking their clothes and leaving their childhood years. My closet is filled with all-season clothes, boxes on the top shelf, and shoes covering the closet floor. No swirling dresses (motherhood filled my dance card); only outfits to be worn for the days full of promise, and old clothes worn for the days filled with nothing but time. There is no room to hide, but there is no need; the scarecrow left long ago. My mother is happy with her cat, her home and the person hired to hang up her clothes and take care of her. I hold the blue, five-button cardigan in my lap, not ready to surrender it to the hanger (it matches your eyes, Dad). The sweater is soft and warm as I hold it to me, closer than a memory. |