coffee shop. Although the driving and the money and the less than convenient local for my wash day seems like a hassle to some – say, Penny for example – it is worlds better than ways I have previously laundered my clothing. I have spent the largest chunk of my teenage years in the eighteen hundreds; first in Europe as a 13 year old, and then in Portugal later, which was where I went to the little missionary school. Wash day was every Monday and without Prue’s capable hands and knowledge, Dad and I would have worn dirty clothes every day, for it was such a difficult and time consuming chore. Just fetching the water took the whole morning and I remember trying to keep up with Prue and her thick, strong legs as we went back and forth from the river to the copper, the big cauldron that was the laundry’s ultimate destination. By noon time, my shoulders and back were aching and my fingers were cramping from grasping the buckets so tightly. Dad would chop wood almost all day long, stoking the fire between his chopping and taking swigs from an always present bottle of homemade whiskey. Why we gave him an ax I will never know, but desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. Then came the scrubbing part, with lye soap, that hurt the calluses on my hands that had formed from carrying the buckets, the wringing, the hanging out to dry along all the trees, and my least favorite part of all: the sewing on of all the buttons we had removed so they wouldn’t be lost or broken during the scrubbing. I can’t say why I hated that part the most; I think it was because we were almost done, almost finished, the hard part over, the water tipped over and spilled out, the fire dying down, supper in sight, and still we had these blasted buttons. Prue, in spite of her large overworked hands, has nimble fingers with a needle and she is a taskmaster when it comes to needlework. I always and forever wanted to rush though it, sewing on buttons willy-nilly, not caring what it looked like or if they lined up properly on the clothing. After all, we’d rip them all off next Monday anyway, so what was the point? But Prue liked things done properly and neatly and if I slacked off, if my stitches were too large and not pulled tightly enough or the button too wobbly, she’d pull it out and make me start anew. I would sit there, daydreaming of being brave enough to not obey Prue’s commands, and make my fingers pull that needle in and out, in and out, spurred on by the smell of biscuits and last night’s ham and fresh tea brewing. The sun would be gone by the time we finished, and supper never tasted as good any other day of the week as it did on Mondays. I finger my blouse’s buttons now, remembering, as I watch my pile of clothes toss merrily in the washing machine in front of me, turning and spinning in the suds. If only someone had invented washing machines earlier, I think; but no, as much as I hated Mondays back then, I love the memories of them just as fiercely now. I can still feel those calluses on my palms and fingers, phantom leftovers from memories past.
Chapter Nine
I leave my clothes spinning and tumbling around and walk back out in the sunshine for the shelter and soup kitchen, which is only a block away. I admire my parking job again as I walk by the Blue Beast. It’s a warm day and my plaid woolen skirt itches my thighs, and I realize the last time I wore the skirt I had worn it with winter tights. A woolen skirt is not the smartest thing to be wearing in late summer but I haven’t washed my clothes in nearly two weeks and it’s the only clean thing I had to put on this morning. Besides, I think it dresses up my plain white cotton blouse nicely, although I suspect Meli will find something wrong with it and purse her lips and sigh when she sees me.
The shelter and soup kitchen is a place I know quite well, though I haven’t dropped by in quite a while. When we first arrived here we spent long hours here, eating a free meal, sometimes serving to help