The Book Club. Mary Monroe Alice

mother since she’d moved to Florida ten years earlier. Her brother in Atlanta visited Edith in Vero Beach frequently and often brought his wife and children with him. It was a happy arrangement, one that freed Midge from feeling any guilt over the few times she’d traveled south herself. Years of therapy had taught her to relish the breathing space.

      She stepped away from the window to finish the dread job of cleaning up her loft. Midge put cleaning house right up there with cooking and ironing on her hate-to-do list. Domestic chores bored her and what was the point? She lived alone and food didn’t particularly interest her. Most mornings she’d pour cereal into her empty coffee cup to avoid dirtying another dish, and dinner was a frozen low-fat entree cooked in the box. The scent of the turkey breast currently roasting in the oven beside two baked potatoes was foreign in this loft.

      Midge scooped up a pile of discarded towels from the bathroom floor, looked at them a minute, then threw them in the bathtub and drew the plastic shower curtain. Next she shot sprigs of Windex on the sink and mirror, then gave them a quick once-over. A little sparkle and shine worked wonders, she thought as she scanned her bathroom. It was a functional room with visible plumbing, a basket full of newspapers and magazines beside the toilet, and her toiletries scattered on a dusty wrought-iron table.

      Her mother would hate it. There were none of the feminine touches Edith deemed essential. No wide, well-lit mirrors, or matching towels, not even a scale—and God knew her mother never started a day without a pee and a weight check.

      Well, it suited her, she thought, feeling the familiar stirrings of resentment that nothing she did was ever good enough for her mother. Why did she care, she asked herself? It was just her mother.

      Midge paused and took a deep, relaxing breath, the kind that belled the belly and lowered the tense shoulders. “Mother…” she sighed aloud, gripping the edge of the sink for support. Edith Kirsch was the one woman on earth who could intimidate Midge. She’d spent a lifetime escaping the clutches of that woman’s expectations, and every time she thought she’d finally grown up and gone far enough away to form a separate identity, bam! One visit from her mother sent her reeling back into the nursery.

      Stop! she scolded herself, warding off the furies. She didn’t have time to deal with old issues now. She glanced up at the clock. Her mother was due in ten minutes, and Edith was never late. Besides, her therapist told her to take deep breaths and let go of all that old anger. In and out…Breathing deep and exhaling long, Midge told herself it would be a fine visit—just peachy—if she could stay out of her mother’s way for the few days she would be in town and steer clear of anything having to do with men, marriage or sex.

      Midge looked at the bottle of cleaner in her hand, her mind grinding away like a tire stuck in the snow, then pulled back the shower curtain with a jerk and tossed the bottle and the rag into the tub, too. She made a quick check in the mirror and smoothed back a few tendrils from the long braid that fell down her back. Perhaps it was the anticipation of her mother’s perusal, but she paused before the mirror to study the face that stared back at her.

      It sometimes stunned her that she barely recognized the face she’d lived with for fifty years. She’d never been one to gaze at her reflection, to try on different makeups or expressions, not even as a teenager. Tilting her head, she studied her bone structure as an artist would a sculpture. She had bold bones that produced good strong lines at the cheeks and jaw, and angled her prominent nose in a Picasso-like manner. An interesting face, from an artistic viewpoint—but not, by any viewpoint, a pretty one. If she were a man, she’d be considered ruggedly handsome. Being a woman, she was unattractive. Not at all the vision of femininity her mother was.

      The doorbell rang and Midge felt a surge of excitement flood her, despite her misgivings. She hadn’t seen her mother in over a year.

      Opening the door, it was as though she’d seen her mother just yesterday. Her smile widened as her gaze devoured the petite woman at the threshold. Edith never changed. She looked as radiant as ever. In contrast to herself, Edith was a tiny woman, just five foot two, with the bones of a sparrow. In fact, that’s how Midge always saw her mother, as a small, delicate songbird with brilliant plumage, bright, dark eyes and movements that were quick yet graceful. She always dressed to the nines, as she put it, coordinating her shoes and bag to her outfit.

      Edith’s bright eyes appraised every inch of her daughter with a mother’s clipped efficiency. Then stepping back, she tilted her head, pursed her lips, raised one perfectly plucked brow and gave Midge a sweeping perusal referred to as the look. Without a word spoken, Midge understood that her own artsy-chic choice of clothes, her graying hair, her unmade-up face, did not win her mother’s approval. It was all so quick, and so devastating. Midge felt the heat of shame but kept her smile rigidly in place.

      “Well, aren’t you going to give me a kiss?” Edith’s flippancy was a buffer.

      “Of course!” Midge bent low to wrap her arms around her mother, feeling as always like a giant beside her. Yet, close up, she relished the feel of her mother’s arms around her, the scent of her familiar perfume.

      “Come in, Edith,” she said, swinging wide her arm.

      “One moment, dear. I have to collect my luggage from the limo.” Her mother had insisted she come by limousine ever since her friends in Florida regaled her with stories about how it was the only way to get to and from the airport. “No fuss, no muss!” she’d told Midge after Midge had argued how she would be happy to pick up her own mother, for heaven’s sake.

      “Let me help,” Midge said.

      “No, no,” Edith replied too quickly, her gaze darting back and forth with anxiety. “The driver brings up the luggage. It’s part of the service, you see.” The way she said it implied, What did I tell you? “You just stay put.”

      Midge waited by the door, craving a cigarette for the first time since giving them up over a year ago. A few minutes later she heard the measured footfall of a man carrying a heavy weight. Sure enough, the tall, muscular driver in a cheap, black suit labored up the stairs loaded down with two immense suitcases. Midge’s mouth slipped open as she gasped with the sinking realization that this was enough luggage to last a whole heck of a lot longer than a week.

      “I’ll be right back with the others,” the driver said, turning the corner of the stairwell.

      “Others?”

      Edith just waved her hand and disappeared back down the stairs. Midge didn’t move a muscle as she waited, then watched the gentleman carry up a dainty hat box tilting precariously atop a taped, brown mailing box big enough to carry an entire wardrobe. A few minutes after he’d disappeared again, Midge heard the gentle tapping of high heels on the stairs. She opened her mouth to ask why on earth Edith needed so much luggage when her throat seized, her eyes bugged and her breath stilled.

      Edith turned the corner and advanced the final two steps in a mincing motion, with a coy expression on her face. But all Midge could see was the small, smudgy ball of white fur and buggy black eyes in her arms.

      “You brought your dog?” she croaked, incredulous that even her mother could be so callous of her feelings that she’d bring her dog along for a visit without asking.

      “I just couldn’t leave Prince,” Edith replied, her voice too high. She was stroking the wiry white curls of her toy poodle’s head so hard she pulled the eyelids back, causing Prince’s eyes to bug out all the more. “He got a terrible case of diarrhea the last time I left him at that horrid Dog’s Day Inn. I swear I thought my baby would perish if I submitted him to that torture again. Honey, I’d perish of loneliness without him. Oh, please don’t be angry at me. He’s such a good boy and I promise I’ll keep him out of your way. Why, Prince is such a little thing, you won’t even know he’s here. Just like me!”

      Midge was choking back her fury, swallowing so hard she couldn’t speak. It’s only for a few days, she told herself over and over again, breathing deep. In and out…She stepped aside, swinging her arm open, allowing her mother to pass.

      She followed the sparrow’s flight path throughout the open, airy loft,