My Mother’s Closet morning lines March 30, 2022
I rarely went into my parents’ room. My mother had very strong boundaries and her bedroom, like the purse she always kept hanging on the back door handle of the hall door, was off limits to the kids. However, in December I sometimes sneaked in when she left the door open, for in the space between the door to the upstairs hall and my father’s closet was a growing stack of wrapped presents. Boxes and packages of all shapes were piled in a carefully engineered heap, wrapped in coloured paper festive with candy canes, reindeer, Santas, glitter speckled tissue, and bows. Stuck-on bows, curled ribbon bows, and the clumsy bows my sister and brothers had tied on the small gifts we had prepared for each other. The whole month of December was exciting, as I watched that pile grow, smelled the shortbread baking, and, the weekend before Christmas, decorated the tree.
But outside of Christmas, there were other presents in my parents’ room. One day I had gone into the room to bask in the filtered light from the old maple tree that stood outside the house in the back yard. I watched the shadows of leaves flicker and rustle across the antique Axminster carpet, and heard the sparrows chirping in the eaves. My mother was out golfing. Her closet door was ajar. I looked in without touching anything. Belts were hanging on the door, shoes ranged in two levels on racks across the closet floor, dresses hung on the right side, skirts and jackets on the left. The closet was neatly organized and packed tightly. She had many clothes, each garment part of an outfit with shoes, jewellery, and makeup she wore with it. My mother loved to dress up and go out, loved parties and dinners and having friends over for drinks. She loved to talk to people.
The top shelf of the closet was the place for several mysterious boxes. These especially interested me that day. Somehow, I had learned over the years that this was where she kept toys, books, and small objects of interest for boys my brother’s age and girls my sister’s age and mine. We lived in a small town with limited shopping choices, and my mother had figured out that every time we went to Pembroke, Ottawa, or Toronto with more variety of stores, she could stock up on potential presents for small people her children’s ages so that when we were invited to birthday parties, she had a gift we could wrap for the birthday boy or girl.
That morning in the mystery box I found a Skipper doll, Barbie’s younger sister, with long red hair that fell to her waist and a tiny hair brush to go with it. It was exactly what I wanted! I couldn’t tell mother I had found it, though, because I wasn’t allowed to be in her room snooping through her closet. Yearning for something I knew I could not have, I put Skipper back in the box, packed the other gifts around it, and returned the box to the dark corner of the top shelf. (531 words)
Janis