aeryn

Slowly, The Shrine has been disappearing, erasing the moment of her death which had sat frozen in his apartment for almost two years. The change had moved through the living room taking first her reading glasses and the TV Guide open perpetually to July 27, 2003. Then her half glass of water stopped being refilled. The flowers finally died and were not meticulously replaced. He re-arranged the furniture to fit his tastes.
The healing passage of time had compelled him to move the changes into her bedroom with a subtle touch at first the last teddy bear she had bought me when I turned 12 was found in a box in storage and propped up in a chair next to her bed. Then some new photographs unearthed in another box were framed and set on her dresser. Finally, on the walls went beautiful water colors of flowers. It became the perfected room that our memory of her would love to inhabit.
When I visit my step-father to make my own pilgrimage to her Shrine, I take note of these changes, liking how he remembers my mother. He has not yet moved his memory of her into her walk-in-closet, and this is where I go to remember. I can stand among her neatly hung clothes accumulated throughout her life and she will be at my house on Christmas Eve in that green silk shirt. Or she will be holding my hand as we walk gingerly over hot sand at the beach, her feet in those leather sandals. I can run my hand over the fox stole and almost remember a woman before she was my mother, beautiful and well dressed turning heads on a New York City street. And there hanging on a hook is a brown purse, its leather still as supple in my hands as it was almost 35 years ago, sending me back to a sunny afternoon.


I am trying to make my dirty blue Keds match her steps as we walk up our street. Her feet small in her white sandals with the square heel always are a bit a head of me, no matter how I try to stretch my legs.
What movie are we going to see Mommy?
The Sting.
Oh. I step, stretch, jump. Now, I, also, dont want to step on the cracks in the sidewalk. Is it about bees?
No, its about people. It has Robert Redford in it and Paul Newman. Theyre both really famous actors. It might get an Academy Award.
Oh.
I jump my way down our street, trying to land in the center of each sidewalk square. Mommy, dont step on the cracks youll break your mothers back.
OK, honey I wont. She continues walking, altering her step to my demand as we make our way past our neighbors houses.
Is Mrs. Bird a witch? There is her brown house. Its overgrown lot always made it dark in inside.
No what makes you say that?
Everyone says she is a witch.
No, shes not. Her son died in the war and she hasnt been the same since. I want you to be nice to her and not say mean things.
It was easy to be nice to her. She never came out of her house. When I went there she always gave me nice pink candies. Though, she was too old to have a son, I thought, she looked like was a grandmother. And it was fun to run past her driveway fast with my friends our fear chasing us. I hope she didnt see us do that because I liked the pink candies.
Hello, Mrs. Cates. A voice stops my mother in front of me. The voice belongs to a man doing something in his yard.
My mother pauses, looking at the long haired, bearded man making his way over to us.
John? Is that you?
He laughs and shakes his hair out of his face. Yeah it is me, Mrs. Cates. My parents have been after me to cut it.
Oh, no its fine. I just didnt know you were back. Your parents must be so glad.
Yeah, well after the war Ive beenuh, traveling around a bit before coming back here
Oh, how was that?
Looking down I noticed an ant hill. They were trying to carry a large seed into the hole. It didnt fit. They kept passing the seed between them, trying other approaches. They are small men building a great city underground. They need my help. I pick the seed off their backs and push it down the hole. They all cheer thanking me. The city will be named Frances the Great.
well it certainly is quiet a belt buckle. My mother was laughing.
It does get some comments. He laughed back.
I saw the belt buckle. It has letters on it. I knew those letters. I almost know all my letters. I pick up a stick near the ant hill and begin to draw in the dirt as they keep talking. I glance back at the belt buckle that had made my mother laugh. The first letter is easy. It is the same letter as my name. I copy it into the dirt.
F
I cant remember the next letter without looking. Oh wait, I know-
U
The next letter is in my name too, but toward the end. I copy it in the dirt next to the other two.
C
The last letter I have to look two times to get right. I write it backward first, then crossing it out I write it correctly.
K
I write it in the dirt with the stick, practicing my letters until Im hot and bored. I stand up and lean my head against my mother, her purse against my cheek, its warm leather scent in my nose. Closing my eyes I trace the word with my finger against the soft leather over and over as she talked and talked.
Ok, Frannie, lets go or we will miss our movie. Finally, her voice jerked my head up. In front of me is her brown purse with the belt buckle word scratched in the leather. It will come out, I think. My mother is good at cleaning things. I follow her up the street.

Im swinging, flying to the sky, touching the top of the trees that frame my back yard.
FRANCES- COME HERE RIGHT NOW!!!!
Cringing, I force myself to run into the house. I know that tone. My mind races to remember what I could have done wrong.
As soon as I enter the kitchen I know. All I can see is the leather purse in her hand.
WHY DID YOU DO THIS?
I look at my feet for an answer. They dont say anything. I dont know. I mumble.
Well I DO! You were mad at me for making you wait the other day. Why else would you have done this? She waves the purse so close to my face I have to move not to be hit with it. Do you have any idea how much this cost? AndI, I had to walk around with this word ALL day where everyone could see it. I cant believe you would do this, and with such an awful word too! She is holding the purse the way Ive seen her hold the dead mice the cat brings in.
The tears start making their way out of my eyes. It is an awful word. One of those words that you are not supposed to say. I didnt know Mommy. I thought you liked the word on his belt buckle.
Why would I like this word? And most of all - why would I want it on my purse?
Im sorry Mommy. I didnt mean to hurt your purse. I thought it would come out.
She looks down at me for a minute, quietly. Sit down. I sit. I hear her rummaging in a drawer behind me. She pulls out a notebook and pen. Here. She puts the items in front of me. When I was little if we got in trouble we had to write lines saying I will not do whatever it was. I want you to write out I will not use the word fuck one hundred times. She writes the sentence across the top of my paper for me to copy.
A hundred times later my hand is cramped and the word fuck indelibly imprinted on my mind. It later becomes one of my most used awful words.

I knew she had kept this purse all these years hanging in the back of her closet, one side carefully turned to the wall. I used to look at it and think she kept it because she couldnt bear to get rid of an expensive purse- no matter how ruined. Sometimes she would take it out, a small scolding smile hanging around her mouth, and say Do you remember when you did this? I would cringe at the painful memory of not doing the right thing and not being understood. Today, as I turn over the purse in my hands, a mother myself, and I see my childish scrawl in the leather, I, finally, know why she kept it all these years. It isnt a memory of being bad, or being misunderstood, but a loving memento of a little child and a young mother learning together. I trace my finger over the awful word on the soft leather and like the new memory of my mother keeping this purse all these years. Gently, I hang the purse back on the hook, careful to make sure I have the unmarred side out, just as she would have liked it, and quietly leave the Shrine taking this memory with me.