For the Love of Beige

“Mom!” Ellie shouts into the clothes dryer, her voice muffled by a tangle of cheap, oversized sweatshirts and her favorite Viori sweatpants. “Mom!” She stretches the word onto multiple syllables. “Dad? Where’s Mom? I can’t find my uniform.”

Her dad’s voice echoes from the bathroom down the hall. “I can’t hear you!”

Ellie slams the dryer door, checks the time on her phone, and skitters down the stairs. “Mom, I’m late!” The kitchen is empty. Her mother’s favorite coffee mug, the one with the photo of her four-year-old self sitting crisscross applesauce in front of the Christmas tree and clutching her long-gone yellow security blanket, is abandoned on the counter, half full of cold decaf. She rolls her eyes. Only her mother would drink from an old holiday mug, a small chip on its rim, a month after the festivities had ended. All the other self-respecting mothers drank Starbucks, or at the very least, Dunkin, she thinks. Ellie herself would never be caught dead drinking coffee from home.

And, if she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t have time to grab her venti, nonfat, iced, caramel macchiato on the way to class. “Mom, seriously, where are you?” Her mother’s purse is missing from its usual place in the mudroom off the kitchen. The keys to the Volvo are still hanging up. So is her coat. Another thing Ellie would never agree with her mom on. The six-block walk to school was a time to be seen. How else would everyone know how good you looked, or which college you aspired to attend next fall? Who wears a coat anyway, she wondered? Only old people. She. Could. Never. So, with her mother’s purse missing, yet her black puffy coat left behind in late January with temperatures in the low twenties, she doesn’t know what to think. She yells again, “Dad, did Mom say she was leaving?”

Her dad, still in the bathroom, offers a garbled response. She selects ‘life giver’ in her phone and fires off a text. Did u wash my uniform? I need the white one for practice 2nite and can’t find it. She waits for the three dots to appear, willing a response. Nothing. At this point, she’s going to be late for first period anyway; no reason to hurry. Her pre-calc class will have to go on without her. At least now she has time for breakfast. She flings open the French doors of the fridge and judges its contents. Too many carbs. Too many calories. Not enough protein. Yogurt makes her gag. She grabs a clementine and a hard-boiled egg, the least offensive options. Only then does she notice the list on top of the forever-growing pile of bills-to-be-paid-papers-to-be-filed-forms-to-be-signed-and-returned.

Her mom’s handwriting is distinctive. It has the style of someone who long ago was forced to perfect the looping scroll of cursive, but over decades, abandoned that perfection for a hybrid of connected print and functional chicken scratch. When she was little, Ellie thought it was a secret language, intent on deciphering its spells. But as soon as she learned to translate the slanted letters, the wilted words, she realized those spells were usually to-do lists, grocery lists, or recipes.

She leans against the counter and peels her clementine, reading the long list and searching for clues to where her mother could have disappeared. The first few items are crossed off: email Joan, renew Costco membership, pay gas bill. Boring. Then a long list of groceries: cottage cheese, Brussel sprouts, sourdough bread, grapes, goat cheese, hummus, baby carrots, cucumber, and so on until the bottom of the page. BORING. Predictable. Typical mid-life, married twenty years, mother stuff. Ellie moves on to peeling her egg. She cracks it on the white quartz counter, then leans over the sink to drop tiny shell fragments into the stainless steel farm sink, using her chrome-polished nails to pick the stuck bits from the soft interior.

Ellie flips the paper over. The list on the back is written in red ink. Her mother’s scrawl, more purposeful, the letters neat and standing at attention. It’s still recognizable as her mom’s handwriting, but it’s no longer lifeless. Like the letters themselves have autonomy, and when linked together, they reveal a story. She runs her finger over the words, feeling the indentation in the paper where her mother left her mark. It’s like she’s a child again, and her mother’s writing finally holds the magic she once believed was real.

At the top of the page, she reads: ORD United 5:14 AM Friday, and under that, LAS United 11:28 AM Saturday. Underlined is Waldorf Astoria, and in all caps, her mother has written ZAC BROWN BAND. Small doodles frame the details: squiggles, swirls, a few stars. When she was younger, her mother used to help her with her math homework. When Ellie became discouraged, her mom would stick a few Post-It notes to the table, and together they would doodle away until she was calm and ready to dive back into the world of middle school story problems, a habit she’d retained now that she’d moved beyond her mother’s forgotten skills of higher-level math. A short checklist follows the travel details: wash and pack Ellie’s uniform, pack swimsuit, ATM, schedule Uber. She runs to the mudroom and opens her backpack. There, her uniform is folded neatly on top of her binders and smells of summer rain fabric softener. A smile teases the edges of her lips. Her mom: predictable, reliable, yet surprising. It’s entirely possible her mom mentioned leaving for an overnight adventure. With work and club volleyball practice, AP homework, and a social life stretched as thin as the ice on the neighborhood sidewalks, she had to admit she really wasn’t around much lately, and when she was, she wasn’t exactly paying much attention to her parents. There usually wasn’t anything interesting to pay attention to. Her mom was basic beige, homemade coffee, dependable car, sensible shoes. Ellie had no reason to think otherwise.

She texts her dad, who has, based on the footsteps above her head, moved on from the bathroom to his office. I think we’ll need to order dinner tonight. Thai? He replies with a thumbs-up.

Grabbing her mom’s beat-up insulated tumbler, Ellie sets it under the coffee maker, pulls out the Private Select ground coffee from the cabinet above, and scoops out three heaping tablespoons. She selects her mom’s favorite hazelnut creamer from the fridge as she waits. Maybe coffee from home isn’t totally horrible or embarrassing. She texts her mom again. Found my uniform thankU! Have fun luv u *heart emoji.* The coffee maker beeps. She stirs in the creamer and a healthy amount of sugar-free sweetener, secures the lid, and grabs her backpack from the mudroom. As an afterthought, she grabs her coat. It’s a decent walk to school.