Checkerboard
— Evenly-sized squares in two different colors placed in alternating positions
I take the grey and white checkered dishtowel from my kitchen drawer. It is still scented by the laundry detergent my mother used and reminds me of the days it hung from her oven handle, days I made us dinner in the senior apartment she called her home away from home, home being any home she had shared with my father over their 53 years of marriage.
It was easier as she grew older if we ate where she lived rather than coaxing her to let me drive us to my house ten minutes away. She told me not to bother with the dishes, to leave them, because she would do them later. I would not leave without washing and drying what we had used.
As my hair caught up with the grey of my mother’s, I thought about our alternating positions remembering my daughter at three announcing that she would grow up when I grew down.
