Dead Housekeeping

When it’s almost dinnertime, come upstairs from the basement, which is also your bedroom. You co-opted it when you were sixteen, tired of sharing a room with your brothers. You didn’t ask permission but your mother didn’t argue. No one ever argues with you. You’re the man of the house.

Your mother is still making dinner, so go to the living room, where four of your five siblings are watching TV.

Lie on the floor on your side, elbow bent, hand cupping your head.

Your youngest sister, 9 years younger than you, comes down the steps and goes into the dining room. The keyboard cover thuds open as she sits down at the piano.

Everyone groans as she begins to hammer on the keys. The others yell to your mother, but you know she will never take their side. Practicing the piano will always take precedence over the TV.

You lean forward and turn the volume on the TV all the way down. Sitting up, you put your finger to your lips and your brothers and sisters stop yelling. Their curiosity is evident.

You call out to your sister.

"Denise?"

"WHAT!?!"

"Why don't you come in and watch TV with us? We'd love to have you!"

You hear her laugh. You hear the thud of the keyboard cover as she shuts it. You turn the volume back up.

-Denise McDonald still has the upright piano that she learned to play as a child. It sounds a little funky, but that might be her. She lives near the beach in NJ with her husband. She is not on Facebook but she is on Instagram. One of these days, she's going to get herself a website.

Begin early in your arranged marriage to your farmer. Sprinkle a little bit of soda, literally on top of the newly growing corn stalk, ruining the whole row, but not the field, before he stops you. Misunderstanding the difference between sprinkling around and on turns out to be just the thing to ensure you’re put out of the fields forever.

Now the kitchen is your domain. Be sure to always have cornbread cooked and greens simmering in the pot in case time gets away from you. Pile high all of your books, various versions of the Bible for cross-referencing, sheet music you never use, several years of yellow pages, cookbooks full of recipes you can’t get the ingredients for, and cartons of cigarettes. All balanced in precarious columns. Spend moments between preparing meals ordering items you don’t have the money or space for.

Find relief out of the hot kitchen by spending afternoons on the back porch reading and smoking, or playing melodies you heard on the radio, by ear and without sheet music, on the tiny upright piano you convinced your husband to buy. It entertains your children and the neighbors through the porch screen.

Make sure to do all of this in your house dress, bra off and no shoes, because none ever fit just right. As you’re rocking and reading on the porch, be sure to make notes in the margins of your thoughts and reactions, even in the Bible. Feel secure that they will always see your thoughts scribbled around passages, like a frame. Who would throw out a Bible? Surely, not your children.

- Leah Rosa O'Donnell is a native New Orleanian and Licensed Professional Counselor. She remains fascinated with observing people and occasionally writes about what she sees.

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