Chapter 17: What I Would Have Done

Dear Late Shift,

You asked what I would have done. The honest answer is in person, and it has paper with it. Where do you want me?

Lark

I sent my address, and then I deleted it, and then I wrote, "Not my apartment. Sunday. Lynnwood."

I don't know why I said Lynnwood.

I think I wanted the one place where nobody had ever read me.

On Sunday my mother stood behind the counter of the dry cleaner with her arms folded.

She looked at me.

"You have been crying for a week," she said.

"I haven't."

"Your eyes are the weather face. Who made you cry?"

I told her.

I told her all of it over the pressing table, with the conveyor humming and wool trousers between us.

I said every word of the real thing instead of the weather.

My voice cracked once, and she turned the radio down without a word.

My mother listened without touching anything, which is unusual for her.

When I was finished, she sniffed.

"So this woman got you the job."

"Yes."

"And then you worked for twenty months and your boss liked you."

"Umma, he liked me because she told him to."

"A man likes you because someone tells him to."

"Then he sees your work."

"If he doesn't like the work, he fires you." She waved her pencil.

"In my shop, I hired a cousin's daughter once."

"She was bad."

"I fired her in a week."

"You did?"

"Family is not an excuse to be bad at pressing. You are not bad at pressing."

"It's writing."

"Same thing. Your hands know what to do."

I laughed, and then I cried a little, and she handed me a clean white handkerchief off the rack without comment.

The bell on the door rang.

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