Free After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

muck out. The stench was
     horrible. I’d pour in a jug of bleach, try and neutralize the muck. And I’d excavate
     the peaty mess with the ice scooper I’d snatch out of the ice machine. It was all
     good training. I learned early that sometimes you have to dig through garbage to get
     anywhere.
    When I left for New York at twenty-five, I went with two suitcases, nothing more.
     I thought I’d be back in Chicago at the end of my six-month internship. So I asked
     her, Can I put my boxes here? She said sure.
    Her basement is enormous. And there is nothing in it, save for one small corner opposite
     the sump pump where there is a metal storage rack. Her Christmas wrapping paper is
     on it. Her suitcase for the trips she takes a few times a year, a cruise or a bus
     tour through Europe. She loves bus tours in Europe. She has this whole system for
     her vacations—months before she leaves, she starts sorting her clothes and underwear
     into “good” and “not good.” The “not good” being frayed, worn, torn. She packs this
     group for the trip. Each day, she wears a pair of the frayed underwear and then at
     the end of that day leaves it in the garbage. “One less thing to pack for home,” she
     says. “It’s great.”
    And then there’s my six boxes. That’s it.
    “You know I have to ask,” she says.
    “Mom, there’s nothing in your basement.”
    She tilts her head down, eyes back to her crosswords. Goes silent.
    “I just don’t understand it, Mom.”
    She doesn’t raise her eyes, even. Just the scratch of the pen adding letters to boxes.
    “I’ll take them to UPS today.”
    She looks up.
    “No. Leave them. Just leave them. It’s fine.”
    That’s what she always says when she’s decided our conversation is finished: Fine.
     And then she gives the air a little horizontal slice with her hand. The thread, severed.
    #
    I come downstairs later and find her with her ironing board set up outside the kitchen.
     A week’s worth of my work shirts, white and damp, hang near her. She loves to do laundry,
     loves to iron. She told me once she liked it because “you can see what you accomplish.”
     Living alone, she doesn’t have much laundry or ironing to do. Whenever I’m about to
     come home, she’ll call me.
    “Are you bringing laundry?”
    “I wasn’t planning on it. I—”
    “Please. You know how much I like it.”
    And then it’s me, stuffing a week’s worth of dirty laundry into my bag for the flight
     to Chicago.
    Anything to find common ground.
    #
    Back when she had just married my father, she and Lorraine, my godmother, would call
     each other while they were doing laundry. To make the time go faster, they would have
     ironing races. Whoever finished all her husband’s shirts first was the winner.
    When I heard that story from Lorraine, I asked her, “But how did you know the other
     person was finished?”
    “What do you mean?” Lorraine said.
    “You were on the phone. So how could you actually see if the other person had won?”
    She looked at me, crazylike. “The heck do you think this is? We would never cheat.
     We’re good girls from Gage Park High.”
    #
    Ever since I was a kid, I’ve known this scene. This sigh of the iron as she presses
     on my shirt.
    Sitting at the foot of the bedroom stairs, I’m terrified even now to ask about my
     father. Part of me still believes that just invoking his name will send her into a
     rage or spasms of grief.
    I summon my courage. I say, “Iwanttofindthetruthaboutdadandthenighthedied.”
    She folds back one of my arms, brings her iron down on it. Just says, “You know the
     story.” And she tells me the story again.
    When she finishes, I say, “But—didn’t you ever notice? The story doesn’t add up.”
    I lay it out for her—the obits, the addresses, the “friends.” I’m waiting for her
     to crack. But she doesn’t. Just the unbroken sliding of her iron and fist, back and
     forth across the upholstered board.
    “I’ve