Laundry
Mum pulls the knotted loop off its hook and locks her eye in with the wheel at the top of the pulley. Passes chord through her hands—one over the other—and lowers the drying rack. The laundry comes down with the majesty of a show girl and I stand small beside the large, wooden table beneath. I too don’t take my eyes off the wheel as it rattles and squeaks. Adding its own tune to the sounds of an old house breathing.
Her eyes, and mine, shift from the wheel to the hook on the wall as she winds the chord around—under and over—and steadies the wooden frame above the kitchen table. I remain as I am. Feel the familiar sensation of dried sheets crumple on my head and fall about my face.
‘So that’s what you’ve decided?’ she says.
I push my head through the sheets, slowly, in the semi-darkness of a habit. Too quick and I’ll drag the pulley out of place.
We slide the sheet off and the rack wobbles with the shift in weight. Take hold of opposite ends. Wait until all four corners are pegged between forefinger and thumb then pull tight.
‘Without a doubt in my mind.’
I lift my chin to demonstrate this. Then walk towards her holding out the folded edge.
‘No, not yet—we’ll go over once more. Then bring me your corners.’
*
‘I’ll have to fly down for it,’ Mum says, slapping the envelope of white sheet over itself and setting it down on the table.
The sun slides along the sash windows, sharpening the edges of the tongue and groove panel walls. It alights on a quaking praying mantis perched on a green spiral cypress that scratches at the window outside.
‘You don’t have to. I’ll be fine, really,’ I say.
‘I’ll book once we know what date. Have you heard anything yet?’
I pull the pillow slips off the rack while Mum bunches up the fitted sheet. One pillowcase for holding the set, the other folded and placed inside with the rest of the bedding.
‘They said it’ll probably be next week. They always happen on a Friday. That’s why the picketers know when to come.’
I search her face for a shift. I’d seen protesters before on my way to class. My friends and I watched them from across the street. And even though I knew at the time, I didn’t tell them that it’d soon be me those people would be yelling at. I don’t tell Mum as much either. I am careful to draw circles around different parts of myself. Careful to avoid leaks.
‘I’ll stay at the same motel as last time,’ Mum says, and walks into the laundry to grab the next pile of washing. ‘You remember it? Just off George Street. Unassuming from the outside, but with sweet little rooms.’
She places the basket on the table.
‘I remember. You stayed there when you brought me down for my first day.’
I’m grateful for a chance to recede back to familiar ground.
A new silence falls. Or, perhaps not new, but rather an iteration of the one reserved for discoveries made between mother and daughter.
I marry the socks while Mum counter-balances wet jeans with wet shirts along the drying rack. She runs her hand along the row the way she always does.
‘Tea?’ she asks and flicks on the kettle.
I nod, unwind the chord from the hook and hoist the pulley back up. The wheels groan beneath the weight.
Sparrows have been picking at bread crumbs on the table. They lift and retreat back out the french doors and into the garden.
‘Maybe while you’re down we could go to that place you like. With the seafood chowder,’ I say.
‘Maybe,’ she says, ‘Let’s see how you’re feeling. You might need to rest after.’
‘Maybe,’ I say.
There are things that are certain in the blue-green kitchen. The laundry is washed and dried. The sparrows grow more confident in their raids. In the afternoon, the sun crosses into the living room before sliding behind Te Ahumairangi Hill.
Other things don’t yet fit into the scheme of things. They perch in the wings, waiting to be invited into the fold. For the nebulous shape of us to absorb them. I endlessly draw new rings around myself. Around what is mine alone and what I allow to be cycled through and hoisted up on the drying rack to hover above us.
Isabella Smith is a writer from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the IIML. She has previously been published in Turbine | Kapohau and will be published in Headland journal later this year.