80s Flashback

Red vacuumed every day to Motown on the record player. Sometimes she'd get up on the coffee table, belting out "I Will Survive" to the subtle static of steel on vinyl. Her three children ran through the living room, unaffected, in a circuit that took them from bedroom to kitchen to sun porch to muddy yard, and back again. Their tracked-in dirt disappeared in a quick sweep of the Electrolux. Nothing was dirty or disorganized if it was within her control.

I was the stray, the "summer sister." Red's middle daughter was my best friend. My mother dropped me off at the beginning of summer vacation and I stayed there for weeks, until a doctor's appointment or a trip to Lake George reuinited me with my given family. I never missed home.

Each day at Red's was structured by mealtimes. We ate cereal for breakfast, each child dumping leftover Os or flakes down the toilet. There were never any remnants in my bowl, though. I was a plate cleaner. Red loved that about me. She was effusive in her praise of my appetite. The funny thing was that I never saw her eat.

Between then and lunch we played Barbies, dress-up or pageant. Sometimes we'd play band. Once I ended the day with a black and blue five inches in diameter from hours of hitting the tambourine against my leg like Michelle Philips in a clueless California dream.

Lunch was tuna fish and celery that I crunched in contentment. Sometimes it was hot dogs with mac and cheese. I ate it all. Red patted my back.

Then there was more of the same play, or a dip in the pool. One summer when we were around ten, we orchestrated mini-triathalons that ended in their round, above-ground pool. I noticed after one such race that my everpresent ankh ring was missing from my right ring finger.

"SHIT!" I screamed, with all the force of discovery. My best friend's eyes were huge as she looked at me. Then she giggled. The shrug of my shoulders swallowed my neck as I bit down on my lip and waited.

"Girls!" Red yelled back from inside the house, where she talked in hushed tones to a neighbor. It was just a reminder that she was listening.

A huge pot of meatballs joined pounds of spaghetti at the dinner table. Us kids sat at the table while Red talked on the phone in the corner. Our voices carried conversations about Scott Grimes, Madonna, the hairy guy next door, and plans to ride our bikes to Friendly's for ice cream. I washed my seconds down with a tall glass of milk. Red nodded at me encouragingly, the phone bobbing against her ear. Her focus was everywhere. It's getting worse, I heard her say to the person on the other line. I don't think I can take it anymore.

My own mother never danced on the coffee table to anthemic oldies, which is why I was giggling and awkward in my admiration whenever Red did it. At Red's house, there was no sweeping things under the rug. Instead, the constant sucking of the vacuum cleaner was its own soundtrack as she made straight lines in the carpet that erased all the detritus of organized chaos. You think I'd crumble? You think I'd lay down and die? She sang it out to the four of us, like she was asking.

I shook my head no. I watched Red and it was clear to me, even as a child, that a mother has no choice but to be strong.