Dirty Little Secrets

“It’s fine.” Mom washed her hands with the special antibacterial soap she got from work. She was afraid of germs and washed her hands until they were bright red. I’m sure she would have liked to declare a national holiday for the day they invented sanitizing gel for your hands. Mom was always telling us to bundle up so we wouldn’t catch cold, no matter how many times I told her that clinical studies proved it didn’t make any difference, and she would never, ever, even if it was the last morsel of food on earth, take a bite from someone else’s fork. “That’s how you get sick,” she always said. Forget about living with rotting food on the counters, mold spores in the air, and no clean dishes—just make sure you didn’t share food with anyone.

We filled our plates and took them to the kitchen table, eating in awkward silence like we were on a first date. My stomach was in knots, and even though I’d spent a lot of time thinking about the food, I could barely eat.

Mom spoke first. “So, how was your day?”

I speared a giant piece of lettuce and tried to decide whether to cut it or just shove it in my mouth whole. “Fine. How was work?”

“It was good.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. I watched her as we ate. She was getting those lines around her mouth that made people look like they were still smiling even after the happy thoughts had faded, and her dark hair had strands of gray shimmering through it. Mom looked over at the bags she’d dropped in the hallway, and her eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh, I stopped by Thrift Town after work, and they were having a blue-tag sale on books. Everything was a quarter, so I got some great hardback books practically free.”

I thought about the four bookcases we already had stuffed full of Mom’s bargain books that none of us had ever read. The overflow books had taken up residence next to the bookcases and were now the holders of other useless stuff, as if they were some kind of towering side table. “Where are you going to put them?” I asked tentatively. I kept my eyes firmly on the rapidly cooling chicken on my plate.

“Oh, I don’t know, I’ll find somewhere,” she said. “Some of them I bought for other people. There was one called Mexico on $5 a Day that I’ll give to Sara for her trip next summer. It’s from 1989, but I’m sure most of the information is still the same.”

I took a deep breath. Here was my opening, and if I didn’t take it now, I might not get another one. Dinner was coming to an end, and I knew that after that, Mom would retire to her recliner to watch TV for the rest of the night, while Phil and I stayed barricaded in our rooms. “About finding places for stuff,” I said slowly. I glanced up quickly to see her expression, but she was happily cutting up chicken on her plate. “I was wondering if we could maybe do some straightening up around here this weekend.”

Mom chewed and nodded slightly. “We could probably do that,” she said between bites. “You know I’ve been busy organizing the drawers in the coffee table. There was so much good stuff in there, you wouldn’t believe it.” Maybe she would understand, after all.

“Well, I was thinking about more than just the coffee table,” I said. I could hear myself starting to talk more quickly. Once the words were out, I wouldn’t be able to take them back again, so I just had to move forward. Like taking a Band-Aid off in one quick motion. “I was thinking maybe we could take some of the newspapers and magazines to the recycling center and go through some of the stuff that’s starting to pile up in the living room.”

Mom’s chewing slowed. “I don’t know about that,” she said. She glanced down the hallway with a worried look. “I haven’t had a chance to go through all of the newspapers yet. There might be something in there I really need, and if we just toss them all, I might miss it. And stuff is not starting to ‘pile up’ in the living room. I know where everything is, and it’s all very necessary. I have my quilting supplies for when I start quilting again, and there are the clothes I’m sorting through for the charity drive at church.”

“There is such a thing as the Internet, Mom.” I could hear sarcasm creeping into my voice, but I couldn’t stop it. I could feel her pushing back, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “You can pretty much find everything you need there, you know. You don’t have to save all these papers.”

“Well, Ms. Smarty Pants,” she said, “how do I know what I’m looking for if I haven’t read about it yet?” She put her fork down on her plate with a loud clatter. “You haven’t been talking to Aunt Jean, have you? I knew she wouldn’t mind her own business. She’s just jealous about all my treasures—”