Jill Sexsmith - Play the Dying Card
My mother and Sergeant Ted met at Wash and Tumble Laundry: Home of the Missing Sock. I liked it there because mother used to let me spin in the washers and dryers instead of taking a bath. While I was jumping in and out of the washers, somehow their underwear got mixed together. Sergeant Ted had sewn address tags into all of his clothes so mother was able to track him down and reunite him with his green boxers.
“It’s the right thing to do,” she said like she was about to spoon-feed all of starving Africa.
She didn’t put the underwear in a bag, she just walked up to his door and handed them over in a
big bunch. He stood at the door and accepted them gratefully, but casually, like he was taking a basket of tomatoes from a neighbour. I saw a girl, my age, look out from behind his legs. My mother and Sergeant Ted laughed about something. Then she saluted him and tiny angel wings sprouted from her ankle bones. I wondered what that girl might think of my mother, standing there in her bare feet, see-through cotton dress, and angel wings.
***
Sergeant Ted sits on my front lawn in the rain. My neighbour is holding an umbrella over his head. Sergeant Ted pulls the light cord and tries to take a nap. More neighbours are huddled on the sidewalk, watching.
When I go outside, I keep my hands in my pockets, thimbles on my fingers. My feet sink into the water and grass. Mud presses between my toes, tries to cover my feet and hold me down. Each step forward is a deliberate sloshing. It is an act. “Why did you come here?”
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“So ask.”
“Do you remember where your mother buried her hair?”
The puddles around him form into tidal waves but only reach his kneecaps. I turn and walk away.
“Wait. I also have something to tell you.”
“So tell.”
***
I cried at their wedding from beginning to end. A flood so great it washed down the aisle and out the
door. Everyone rowed or swam to the reception. My mother’s dinghy almost tipped over. I lost my paddles.
I blamed myself for their union. I wanted so desperately to touch men’s underwear. I was convinced it
was something terribly important I was missing out on. So when I saw it, I grabbed it and took it swimming with me. That’s how I came to watch my mother wobble in high heels, stuffed into someone else’s dress, her hair combed and twisted.
***
Sergeant Ted watches the water stream down his legs, cascade off his knees.
My neighbour says, “My cats get despondent when I’m gone for too long.”
“Yes, I understand.” I see the cats in the window looking despondent.
“Can we bring this man inside?”
I click my thimbles together. “He should go.”
My neighbour looks up and down the street. “Go where?” She leans in closer. “I think he’s trying to tell you something. I think he’s dying.”
My neighbours hoist Sergeant Ted out of his chair. He is hunched over, unhinged at the waist. The movement makes him cough, then spit. My other neighbours grab his chair and start walking toward the house.
“I won’t block your view for long,” Sergeant Ted says. He asks my neighbours to put his chair in front of the TV.
“You can’t stay here,” I say.
“Thank you for letting me stay here.” He eases back into his chair.
