I Stand Here Ironing

I Stand Here Ironing

by Tillie Olsen

I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the

iron.

I'm sure you can help me understand her. She's a youngster who needs help and whom I'm

deeply interested in helping.

her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for

nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me.

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total? I will start

and there will be an interruption and I will have to gather it all together again. Or I will

become engulfed with all I did or did not do, with what should have been and what cannot

be helped.

She was a beautiful baby. The first and only one of our five that was beautiful at birth.

You do not guess how new and uneasy her tenancy in her now -- loveliness. You did not

know her all those years she was thought homely, or see her poring over her baby pictures,

making me tell her over and over how beautiful she had been -- and would be, I would tell

her

--

and

was

now,

to

the

seeing

eye.

But

the

seeing

eyes

were

few

or

non- existent.

Including mine.

I nursed her. They feel that's important nowadays. I nursed all the children, but with

her, with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, I did like the books then said. Though

her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the

clock decreed.

Why do I put that first? I do not even know if it matters, or if it explains anything.

She

was

a

beautiful

baby.

She

blew

shining

bubbles

of

sound.

She

loved

motion,

loved

light,

loved

color

and

music

and

textures.

She

would

lie

on

the

floor

in

her

blue

overalls patting the surface so

hard in

ecstasy her hands and feet

would blur. She was a

miracle to

me, but

when she was eight

months

old

I had to

leave her daytimes

with

the

woman downstairs to whom she was no miracle at all, for I worked or looked for work and

for Emily's father, who

want with us.

I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression. I would start

running as soon as I got off the streetcar, running up the stairs, the place smelling sour, and

awake

or

asleep

to

startle

awake,

when

she

saw

me

she

would

break

into

a

clogged

weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet.

After a while I found a job hashing at night so I could be with her days, and it was

better. But it came to where I had to bring her to his family and leave her.

It took a long time to raise the money for her fare back. Then she got chicken pox and

I had to wait longer. When she finally came, I hardly knew her, walking quick and nervous

like her father, looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed her

skin and glared at the pockmarks. All the baby loveliness gone.

She was two. Old enough for nursery school they said, and I did not know then what I

know now -- the fatigue of the long day, and the lacerations of group life in the kinds of

nurseries that are only parking places for children.

Except that it would have made no difference if I had known. It was the only place

there was. It was the only way we could be together, the only way I could hold a job.

And even without knowing, I knew. I knew the teacher that was evil because all these

years it has curdled into my memory, the little boy hunched in the corner, her rasp,

aren't you outside, because Alvin hits you? that's no reason, go out, scaredy.

hated it even if she did not clutch and implore

mornings.

She always had a reason why we should stay home. Momma, you look sick, Momma,

I feel sick. Momma, the teachers aren't there today, they're sick. Momma, we can't go, there

was a fire there last night. Momma, it's a holiday today, no school, they told me.

But

never

a

direct

protest,

never

rebellion.

I

think

of

our

others

in

their

three,

four

-year-oldness -- the explosions, the tempers, the denunciations, the demands -- and I feel

suddenly ill. I put the iron down. What in me demanded that goodness in her? And what

was the cost, the cost to her of such goodness?

The

old

man

living

in

the

back

once

said

in

his

gentle

way:

should

smile

at

Emily more when you look at her.

There were all the acts of love.

It was only with the others I remembered what he said, and it was the face of joy, and

not of care or tightness or worry I turned to them -- too late for Emily. She does not smile

easily, let alone almost always as her brothers and sisters do. Her face is closed and sombre,

but when she wants, how fluid. You must have seen it in her pantomimes, you spoke of her

rare gift for comedy on the stage that rouses a laughter out of the audience so dear they

applaud and applaud and do not want to let her go.

Where does it come from, that comedy? There was none of it in her when she came

back to me that second time, after I had had to send her away again. She had a new daddy

now to learn to love, and I think perhaps it was a better time.

Except when we left her alone nights, telling ourselves she was old enough.

just a little while you'll be gone? Do you promise?

The time we came back, the front door open, the clock on the floor in the hall. She

rigid awake.

times,

and

then

I

ran

downstairs

to

open

the

door

so

you

could

come

faster.

The

clock

talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me -- what it talked.

She said the clock talked loud again that night I went to the hospital to have Susan.

She was delirious with the fever that comes before red measles, but she was fully conscious

all the week I was gone and the week after we were home when she could not come near

the new baby or me.

She did not get well. She stayed skeleton thin, not wanting to cat, and night after night

she had nightmares. She would call for me, and I would rouse from exhaustion to sleepily

call back:

sterner

voice,

go

to

sleep,

Emily,

there's

nothing

to

hurt

you.

Twice,

only

twice,

when I had to get up for Susan anyhow, I went in to sit with her.

Now when it is

too

late (as if she would let

me hold

and comfort

her like

I do the

others)

I

get

up

and

go

to

her

at

once

at

her

moan

or

restless

stirring.

you

awake,

Emily? Can I get you something?

go back to sleep, Mother.

They

persuaded

me

at

the

clinic

to

send

her

away

to

a

convalescent

home

in

the

country where

be

free

to

concentrate

on

the

new

baby.

They

still

send

children

to

that

place.

I

see

pictures on the society page of sleek young women planning affairs to raise money for it, or

dancing

at

the

affairs,

or

decorating

Easter

eggs

or

filling

Christmas

stockings

for

the

children.

They never have a picture of the children so I do not know if the girls still wear those

gigantic red bows and the ravaged looks on the every other Sunday when parents can come

to visit

Oh it is a handsome place, green lawns and tall trees and fluted flower beds. High up

on the balconies of each cottage the children stand, the girls in their red bows and white

dresses, the boys in white suits and giant red ties. The parents stand below shrieking up to

be heard and the

children shriek down to

be heard, and between them the invisible wall

There was a tiny girl who always stood hand in hand with Emily. Her parents never

came.

One

visit

she

was

gone.

moved

her

to

Rose

Cottage,

Emily

shouted

in

explanation.

She wrote once a week, the labored writing of a seven- year-old.

baby. If I write my Ieter nicly I will have a star. Love.

every

other

day,

letters

she

could

never

hold

or

keep

but

only

hear

read

--

once.

simply

do

not

have

room

for

children

to

keep

any

personal

possessions,

they

patiently

explained

when

we

pieced

one

Sunday's

shrieking

together

to

plead

how

much

it

would

mean to Emily, who loved so to keep things, to be allowed to keep her letters and cards.

Each visit she looked frailer.

(They had runny eggs for breakfast or mush with lumps, Emily said later, I'd hold it in

my mouth and not swallow. Nothing ever tasted good, just when they had chicken.)

It

took

us

eight

months

to

get

her

released

home,

and

only

the

fact

that

she

gained

back so little of her seven lost pounds convinced the social worker.

I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff,

and after a while she'd push away. She ate little. Food sickened her, and I think much of

life

too.

Oh

she

had

physical

lightness

and

brightness,

twinkling

by

on

skates,

bouncing

like a ball up and down up and down over the jump rope, skimming over the hill; but these

were momentary.

She fretted about her appearance, thin and dark and foreign-looking at

a time when

every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blonde replica of

Shirley Temple. The doorbell sometimes rang for her, but no one seemed to come and play

in the house or be a best friend. Maybe because we moved so much.

There was a boy she loved painfully through two school semesters. Months later she

told me how she had taken pennies from

my purse to

buy

him candy.

his

favorite and I brought him some every day, but he still liked Jennifer better' n me. Why,

Mommy?