“Tiny, Meaningless Things” by Marisa Silver

Tiny, Meaningless Things

Wednesday is ironing day, a day of smoothness, the pleasing, embryonic smell of wet heat, and the satisfactions of erasure. How rewarding it is, Evelyn thinks, to work the tip of the iron into the wrinkled underarms of her favorite blouses and watch their instant transformation into material that is fresh and untried. Now that she is seventy-four, and her skin has lost its elasticity, this trick of reversing time is no longer available to her.

It’s like a head of wilted lettuce, she thinks, as she mists a blouse with water. All you have to do is put it in ice water and it springs back to life. These were lessons she’d tried to impart to her daughters: the proper way to store vegetables, to fold clothing, to wash their faces (never soap, only water). They hadn’t listened, of course. They couldn’t imagine decay. Her daughters’ bored or frankly antagonistic responses to her attempts to make them understand the value of preservation had agitated her, and she’d repeated her warnings two or maybe three times until they screamed or slammed doors. They were young. How could they know the disaster of carelessness? She knew. She’d been at her cousin’s wedding in Tulsa when her husband died so long ago. The doctor had told her that it would be safe to take those days off from her vigil, that Frank had a while yet. Naomi and Ruth were away at school, Naomi in Lincoln, Ruth all the way east at a private college that had given her a scholarship to insure her sharp and critical company. It had been up to Paula to keep tabs on her father that weekend. Evelyn paid for a nurse to come in during the day. All Paula had to do was peek into the bedroom once or twice before she went to bed, just to make sure that her father was sleeping easily. It wasn’t a lot to ask of a sixteen-year-old who stayed awake late into the night, whispering on the phone to boys. Evelyn had been surprised that Paula hadn’t complained. That had touched her, and she’d thought that perhaps now that Paula’s sisters were gone, and she was no longer the youngest, alternately teased or ignored, she was beginning to feel the grownup pleasures of responsibility. Evelyn had left phone numbers for people Paula could call should anything be amiss—Dr. Barnes and Vivian Branch next door. She’d left the number of the house where she’d be staying. But Paula hadn’t called anyone. She hadn’t even checked on her father when she came home from the party she’d promised to forgo. The next morning, when the nurse called Evelyn, she said that Frank had been gone for “some time.” Evelyn hadn’t asked how long. She didn’t want to know if the nurse had found him with his mouth agape, didn’t want to imagine that he’d been that way for hours, his final call unheard. Paula was still asleep, the nurse said. Should she wake her?