\u201cI can\u2019t live with this,\u201d Lenore, my stepmother says. Her hand motions toward this new apartment\u2019s sepia-toned colonial wallpaper, diamond-framed antebellum man on horseback, woman in bonnet clutching a basket headed to market. Choices no doubt made by a family faithed in the lost hope of nostalgia.<\/p>\n
My real mother died the year I was born. Dad married three more times, each woman a new stepmother to me, at least briefly. I called them by their names, like he did, and none of them ever called me son or tried to play mother. Now they are all dead except for Lenore, the second wife. \u201cYou\u2019re all I have,\u201d she said when she reached out to me, \u201cand I need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am nearly forty now, unmarried, and alone. I have not heard from her in thirty years. I agree to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the family that lived in this apartment,\u201d she says, the curious benefit of a one-town life. \u201cThey were nice to me.\u201d Her eyes close, she smiles, looking far back at a moment of kindness.\u00a0 Her hand again reaches out, \u201cThe walls were roses, all red roses.\u201d Her arm drops, the hand returns to her side, empty. Eyes open, she frowns. \u201cI just want a clean beige wall, nothing fancy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She leaves. I am here to provide labor, return these paper-thick walls to plaster. I get to work, lifting the heavy steam hose, rented at my expense, a tool I\u2019ve never used. How hard can it be? Boiling water scalds my arm as steam shoots up across the wall then down into my lungs. Why am I doing this? Paper puckers granting fingerholds of generous excavations. Layers of domestic history slide free like wet bed sheets.<\/p>\n
Sweaty, burned, muscle sore, I am no longer a child and know these efforts won\u2019t turn a Cinderella pumpkin into a carriage, won\u2019t atone for the sins of a father, transform a stranger into a mother, yet I keep going as if at some point I will be rewarded, handed whatever it is I seem to want from one of my almost-mothers.<\/p>\n
More slosh of wet paper slides free as new patterns of domestic decisions appear. Vertical stripes, floor to ceiling, brown and blue, an earth to sky roadmap dotted in four-leaf clovers, telltale remains from a family eager to escape, yearning for luck.<\/p>\n
The day darkens toward evening. The wall puckers and I pull, strips of sticky paper lick the floor, another ghost appears. Geometric squares and circles, gayly painted platters of cookies, crackers and pies, a pattern for a kitchen apron comfortable in stains, a family that feasted against life\u2019s stingy outcomes, shielding themselves in bulk.<\/p>\n
Exposed layers pick up speed, reams of history falling easily into forgotten past, age weakening the glue that held it hostage.<\/p>\n
At last roses appear, clusters of bouquets hopeful in buds, cabbage-thick scarlet blooms edged in mint green leaves adrift in a background of buttery cream. I stop. The room transforms into a remembered garden. I wait.<\/p>\n
Lenore returns.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, the roses.\u201d<\/p>\n
We stand, allowing silence to deepen, hoping for reprieve.<\/p>\n
She turns to leave, \u201cKeep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
I lift the steaming hose, peeling past roses, knowing I will never be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am no longer a child and know these efforts won\u2019t atone for the sins of a father, transform a stranger into a mother, yet I keep going as if at some point I will be rewarded, handed whatever it is I seem to want from one of my almost-mothers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":24816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3529],"tags":[4600,105],"class_list":["post-23892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-nonfiction","tag-flash-nonfiction-family","tag-relationships","writer-lou-storey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23892"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24817,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23892\/revisions\/24817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}