Lynda Gene Rymond

In Moonlight

Lynda Gene Rymond

Mamie and me, we laid out the quilts, three we got in the funeral sale and the pieces of clothes, camisoles, and a petticoat mostly all right and a man’s suit just perfect but for the buttons taken off and used for something else. I searched the house for some kind of button box just in case ‘cause it was a shame but anyway there weren’t any and Mamie can select something 'cause she’s got such a good eye it’ll be better than it was before. But you know, we lay the stuff out on a dry night to freshen it like. Mamie calls it washing in the moonlight.

You can't use no washing machine or anything modern. It just sucks the life right out so we lay it out in my backyard at sunset, the quilts resting on high grass at the edge of the hayfield and the petticoat and suit and all spread out over the hydrangea bushes. You can’t use hangers ‘cause of the metal, don’t you know it, just bites at the cloth.

So we went up on the back porch to sit for a while just looking at, well we call them our buried treasure ‘cause we dig them out of chests and wardrobes and if you knew what some of these old houses are like you’d know I really mean it when I say dig. So anyway we sat on the porch ‘til dark talking about, I don’t know what but probably her great-granddaughter’s wedding ‘cause for a while it was THE topic of conversation and when the mosquitos started to bite Mamie went on home to read her Bible. I just went to bed ‘cause I don’t stay up since Earl passed.

And I woke up. I often do I guess it’s age and since Earl went I don’t do much more than drowse but anyway I woke up when the moon was high and round as a golden locket. A shadow passed by the window and well I expect I’m not the only widow that does this but I got up to see if Earl’s come home, you can get a little confused between what’s so and what you want to be so. I wait for his step on the porch, then thinking how just one time more I’d like to see the moonlight shining off that jalopy old pickup of his I had to sell, I look out the window to see that whole suit of clothes , Jesus is my witness, pass through the yard and a petticoat and camisole rise up off the pink flowers just like a woman, you know what I mean like a woman rising to her man. The suit swelled and swooped, the two sleeves out around that gauzy camisole, leading a dance so clear I could count the waltz beat as they rounded the yard. I wished I could call it some trick of the wind’s but not a leaf or flower moved in the least. Their moon shadow slid alongside them near as dark as the sun’s and I watched like I was solid ice ‘til they twirled higher toward the stars and right close to my window. I quick laid back down in the bed and pulled the covers up to my chin and didn’t move but for quaking. I prayed first for my everlasting soul and then I guess for old souls everywhere and then I cried a bit for Earl.

At first light I felt I could move so I called Mamie and she come over before the coffee was even percolated through. She’s twenty-five years older than me but quicker, quick as a red squirrel. I told her all and said Mamie please look out the window and she did and said honey, you can come see, they’re asleep. And they were just flat on the double wedding ring quilt and spread careful like two lovers resting, the underthings tucked beneath the suit’s folded shoulder. I said Mamie I never and she laughed her laugh like a little silver bell. She said I guess I’m only surprised it doesn’t happen more I’m glad they had a last chance, aren’t you. It took me a minute but I said, don’t I just wonder if. What, honey, she asked but she’s so quick and she knows me better than anyone. You get out something of Earl’s and you pick out something you like for yourself it should probably be from a good old time. And I’ll give them to my great-grand daughter for when the time comes. She thinks we’re crazy old biddies selling silly old clothes but she’ll do it she has a good heart and she doesn’t know it yet but she’ll come to be a crazy old biddy herself one day. And so then we took our morning coffee and powder doughnuts out on the back porch to watch the dew dry up and pick up the clothes at just the right time, before the sun took the moonlight out of them again.