The people who visited the Heritage House were mostly women as well. They wanted the explanations that could be found there—why some chairs were higher than other chairs, in the days of Heritage, and who did the scrubbing of the tin bathtubs and the emptying of the chamber pots, and how the water used to make its way out of the well. They wanted to know how things got the way they are now, and they hoped that the explanations given by the smiling women in the Heritage House might help.
Men didn’t care so much about those subjects, and so they didn’t go. Also they said that Heritage ought to mean things that have been inherited, passed down from father to son as it were, but since nobody did the so-called heritage things any more, or even thought about them except when they were in the Heritage House getting nodded and smiled at and bored to death with explanations, Heritage House was a misnomer in the first place and they didn’t see why they should have to pay taxes to keep the joint going.
Over time, the Heritage House filled up. It was such a convenient place to stash things you no longer had a use for but didn’t want to throw out. More and more Heritage was crammed in. An annex was built, in the style of the original edifice, with a tea room in it where you could rest your feet and relax—Heritage could be exhausting—and more female guides were hired, and research was done on authentic costumes for them to wear. But then there was a change of government and funds were cut. Perhaps some of the Heritage should be disposed of, it was said. But by now there was so much Heritage jammed in there that just sorting it out would take much more money than anyone wanted to spend. So nothing was done.
I went to the Heritage House myself, the other week. It was in disrepair. The windows were opaque with dust, the front steps were a disgrace: it was clear to see that nothing had been scrubbed off or fixed up in years. I rang the rusted bell for a long time before anyone answered it. Finally the door opened. I could see a long hallway, piled to the ceiling with boxes and crates. Each box was labelled: CORSETS. MIXMASTERS. THUMBSCREWS. CALCULATORS. LEATHER MASKS. CARPET SWEEPERS. CHASTITY BELTS. SHOE BRUSHES. MANACLES. ORANGE STICKS. MISCELLANEOUS.
From behind the door an old woman appeared. She was wearing a chenille bathrobe. She let me in, pushing aside a stack of yellowing newspapers. The place stank of mouse droppings and mildew.
She nodded at me, she smiled. She hadn’t lost the knack. Then she launched into a stream of explanations; but the language she spoke was obsolete, and I couldn’t make out a word.
BRING BACK MOM: AN INVOCATION
Bring back Mom,
bread-baking Mom, in her crisp gingham apron
just like the aprons we sewed for her
in our Home Economics classes
and gave to her for a surprise
on Mother’s Day—
Mom, who didn’t have a job
because why would she need one,
who made our school lunches—
the tuna sandwich, the apple,
the oatmeal cookies wrapped in wax paper—
with the rubber band she’d saved in a jar;
who was always home when we got there
doing the ironing
or something equally boring,
who smiled the weak smile of a trapped drudge
as we slid in past her,
heading for the phone,
filled with surliness and contempt
and the resolve never to be like her.
Bring back Mom.
who wanted to be a concert pianist
but never had the chance
and made us take piano lessons,
which we resented—
Mom, whose aspic rings
and Jello salads we ate with greed,
though later derided—
pot-roasting Mom, expert with onions
though anxious in the face of garlic,
who received a brand-new frying pan
from us each Christmas—
just what she wanted—
Mom, her dark lipsticked mouth
smiling in the black-and-white
soap ads, the Aspirin ads, the toilet paper ads,
Mom, with her secret life
of headaches and stained washing
and irritated membranes—
Mom, who knew the dirt,
and hid the dirt, and did the dirty work,
and never saw herself
or us as clean enough—
and who believed
that there was other dirt
you shouldn’t tell to children,
and didn’t tell it,
which was dangerous only later.
We miss you, Mom,
though you were reviled to great profit
in magazines and books
for ruining your children
—that would be us—
by not loving them enough,
by loving them too much,
by wanting too much love from them,
by some failure of love—
(Mom, whose husband left her
for his secretary and paid alimony,
Mom, who drank in solitude
in the afternoons, watching TV,
who dyed her hair an implausible
shade of red, who flirted
with her friends’ husbands at parties,
trying with all her might
not to sink below the line
between chin up and despair—
and who was carted away
and locked up, because one day
she began screaming and wouldn’t stop,
and did something very bad
with the kitchen scissors—
But that wasn’t you, not you, not
the Mom we had in mind, it was
the nutty lady down the street—
it was just some lady
who became a casualty
of unseen accidents,
and then a lurid story…)
Come back, come back, oh Mom,
from craziness or death
or our own damaged memory—
appear as you were:
