The Need to be Strong

I am the table and the chair. I am the lamp that burns so softly. I am the window shades that are pulled halfway so that the dress of the moon can float into my bedroom. I am the wind that touches me softly.

I am the house at night that hums when I am alone. So rarely am I alone. This house is almost always a hive. There is always a buzz because someone needs his medicine or someone can't find her socks. And I am the one. I am the center of the atom. I watch all the danger revolve around me.

“Mom!” Lydia’s voice falls from the third floor to the basement where I am sorting warm clothes. I hang the sweaters and the slacks. I fold the underwear and t-shirts. I couple the socks together like twins. “Mom, did you wash my uniform?!”

Yes, dear. I did. But I don’t answer her. I provide, but I am not her employee. The uniform sits on the dryer, waiting. Lydia is the last one left in the house, but she will be gone soon, getting a ride to the soccer match from her boyfriend. Soon I will be alone.

She bounds down the three flights, and snags the uniform. “Thanks, mom.”

Lydia turns to fly, but she pauses. She sheepishly looks over shoulder at me. “Why can’t you come to see me play?”

Lydia shifted, her face of speckled freckles tried to win me, but I was not going to budge. “What if there are no finals? This could be my last game.”

I paid no attention to her sad head tilt. That stopped working by middle school. “You’ll make the finals. I’ll be there for the finals.”

“Ohh kay” She bounded up the cellar stairs. “You better be right!” And just like that, she was gone, too.

I place the folded clothes in the basket, pressing it to my hip, as I grab the hanging clothes with my other hand. I could really use three hands, but I’ll do this task alone. My sacrifice to my sanity. Besides, even with the house full, I always did the laundry alone. I struggle up to the top floors, finding familiar homes for all of the well folded and perfectly hung clothes.

I take a deep breath. The air in the house is all mine tonight. I will breathe in every room. I will be selfish with it. I will fill my lungs with it until I can’t find one free spot in my lungs. I will breathe the air alone tonight.

On a night like this I am struck by how noisy the house is even though I am alone. It's as if I can hear the house for the very first time. It is speaking to me. It is taking advantage of this intimacy, and it is telling me secrets.

The house is whispering love songs to me. It is pulling me down its hallways and into its bathrooms. It wants me to open the windows wide and see the eaves and the dormers. It would have me look up at the noises that come from the attic. It would pull me down into the basement where the furnace howls itself awake. The house fancies making love to me tonight. It wants to see me naked. And I can do this for the house.

I remember that I was once the one taking dance class. Like our youngest, Baylin. Ballet. I got pretty far with it. I even danced professionally for a year until an unplanned (but athletically gifted) daughter sprang up inside of me. At 19, I had to retire from dance. Awful. But tonight I will dance again. I will pirouette. I will move through the positions and use the mahogany chair’s back as a barre.

Ralph asked me to marry him before the baby bump got too big. It was a hack job wedding. City Hall. His father. My mother. He lost his mom and my dad lost me. But here we are. I know his breathing as well as I know his name. It’s all the same. He is in every room, but not tonight. Tonight he is out watching pay-per-view at the bar with the guys. All the planets aligned tonight.

The moon is a window out here in the woods.

Tonight the rooms are mine and I am 18. I am dancing the Sugar Plum fairy and Giselle with my curly brown hair flat ironed and covering my ears.

I can see myself stripped and dancing on the wooden floor to the staircase and through the living room. I could be in front of the dishwasher with nothing on my body. And I could feel it vibrating as it cleans the knives and the spoons and the coffee cups in its belly.

I could slide down into the basement once again. And I could fit myself into the dryer. I could let it hug me in its red hot arms. I could touch every light switch in the house the way I would like to be touched when I'm not alone. Because even though I'm naked in the house, I can't stop hearing the voices of the people who sleep in all the beds. They never stop talking. They never stop asking. They never stop whispering love into my left ear and my right. And I can hold them all.

My arms are strong. I have carried them all from one room to the next. And even the one who sleeps next to me is not so big that I can't lift him when he's sick or when he's needy. The house would have me vulnerable, and I let myself be that just for tonight. Soon the hours will creep away, and once again I will need to be strong. I will be the beams and the rafters and the walls and the ceiling. I will keep the rain and the snow from harming this family. I am the house, and they all live inside of me forever.