Yardstick

I’m reading in my bedroom when I’m startled by a loud slapping sound coming from the kitchen.  I know what it is – it’s my mother smacking the kitchen counter with her yardstick.  The sound means my mother is furious.   She never hits any of us with the yardstick, but the noise it makes is still terrifying.  I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong – I rarely allow myself to break the rules – but someone has and that means trouble.

I race out of my room and down the stairs to the kitchen.  I can see in an instant what has happened.  The benches are on top of the picnic-style kitchen table, which means that my mother has washed the floor.  But there are muddy sneaker prints going all the way across the kitchen from the back hall to the door leading out of the kitchen and into the rest of the house.  From the looks of it, more than one of my siblings forgot to take off their shoes and leave them by the back door, like they’re supposed to.  Didn’t they see the benches on top of the table?  Didn’t they notice that the floor was wet?

Brian, Heather and Rory come slinking into the kitchen from the playroom.  I see the worried, guilty looks on their faces at the same time that my mother takes in their muddy sneakers, still on their feet.  She starts screaming at them:

“Take off your goddamn shoes!  Look at the mess you’ve made!”

 My siblings sit down on the floor and I help them with the shoes, then push them up the back stairs and into my room. I tell them to be quiet and wait for me.  I go back downstairs, pick up the shoes, and line them up on the mat in the back hall.  Then I get a broom and sweep up the dried mud from the kitchen, the playroom, the hallway, and everywhere else my siblings have been.

Meanwhile, my mother has stopped screaming and has begun to cry.  My little sister Tricia, who’s been in her playpen in the playroom while my mother’s been mopping, has also started to cry. I know I have to fix things.  I’m the oldest, my mother’s second in command. I have to be the good girl, the helper, the special one.

“I’m sorry, Mom, would you like me to wash the floor again?”

“No, that’s OK, I’ll do it,” she says, as she puts her bucket back into the kitchen sink and begins to fill it with water again.  “But please keep them out of my hair for a while.”

“OK, I’ll play a game with them!”  I say this as brightly as I can, hoping to get a smile out of her.  But she just sighs wearily as she lifts the heavy bucket out of the sink, maneuvering awkwardly to get it past her big pregnant belly.

“Can you take Tricia upstairs with you?” she asks.

“Sure, “ I say. I get Tricia out of her playpen, then carry her on my hip as I go back upstairs.

“Everything’s OK,” I tell my siblings, “but we need to stay up here and be quiet for a while.”

I organize them into a game of Trade, one of our favorites.  We each find some toys we want to trade and put them in the doorway of our room.  Then we go “shopping” and make our exchanges.  I manage to keep them busy until the floor is clean and dry, my mother has made lunch, and she calls us down to eat.

She’s not angry anymore, but my siblings are all on their best behavior during the meal and remain that way for the rest of the day. As for me, I’m always on my best behavior. I cannot break the rules. I cannot make a mistake.