OUT IN THE WASH

‘Don’t make me go, Mamma. Don’t!’ I stood in front of my mother who was still wearing her flowered apron covered with flour. ‘Get up stairs, go into your closet, close the door and stay there until you apologize to me- good and loud.’ ‘No. I am not sorry and won’t say I am. I’ll stay in the closet until I die and then you will be the sorry one.’

Angry tears wet my cheeks, my chin, as I go to my closet full of ugly hand-me-down clothes. I push shoes that are too big or too little for me to the side, pull my long robe off a wire hanger and lay it flat on the floor. A bright chartreuse green sweater that I hate with a passion works well as a pillow. My anger stays hot but the floor is cold.

From downstairs Mamma calls again, ‘I’m waiting for that apology, Mary Jane.’ ‘Wait. I don’t care.’ The sky is almost dark. I’m getting hungry. My belly is growling. Daddy should be home soon. He’ll come up and find me. I know he will. ‘Daddy’s working late, Mary Jane. He’s not going to save you this time. Apologize and you can come down.’ ‘You started it, Mamma. You have to apologize to me.’

Without her permission I leave the closet and go to the toilet. I use the yellowish plastic cup that we all use to rinse out the morning toothpaste and take a few swallows of water. For sure Momma hears the toilet flush but doesn’t threaten me. Back I go into the closet.

We don’t have a garage so Daddy always honks his horn when he finds a parking space in front of our shingled house. Honk, honk! He’s home. The front door opens, then closes softly. ‘Mary Jane, Papa’s home. Where are you?’ In a voice our neighbors and god must hear, Mamma tells her side. ‘That girl is in her closet where I sent her. She threw flour at me and won’t apologize.’ Daddy asks Mamma which flower?

’Did you spend money again on more spring tulips?’ No, Bunky. Gold Medal flour. I had started to make a lemon cake when Mary Jane came home from school and started nagging me for a new dress. Her friend, Jenny, is having a 12th birthday party and all the girls are getting new dresses. Ha. I doubt that. Anyhow, I told her I’d take her to the Thrift Shop Thursday and get her a pretty used one. She screamed at me as if I ripped her heart out. I repeated my offer of a dress Thursday and, and, and, she picked up the bowl of flour and poured it over my head, the table, floor, and that’s why she’s in the closet.’

Like a roaring bear, he called to me, ‘Mary Jane, come down here now!’I’ve heard that one before and wasted no time going downstairs. He took my hand, gave me a hug and said what I didn’t expect. ‘No matter how much I love you, you were wrong. That was a nasty, rotten thing you did to your mother. Now, right this second, you apologize to her.’

Daddy was right. I did do a bad thing. I turned to Mama, lowered my head in shame and said, ‘ I apologize, Mama, for throwing the flour on you, wasting the flour, making a mess. I really am sorry.’

Before she had a chance to gloat, I added, ‘but you owe me an apology too, making me sit in that dark closet, underneath the ugliest clothes in the world. That was not nice either.’

Mamma said she was sorry and we sat down to a good fried kipper supper. The onion smell is what got me to give in, not Daddy.