Guest Towels
Guest Towels
by Kelp
They were not the kind you’d want to smooth your face into.
They were stiff and formal like my mother’s idea of company.
Patterned with black and white squares like a checkerboard.
Like the tiles in a subway restroom.
They were uninviting.
How many guests actually used those towels?
To dab their damp fingers on,
after unsuccessfully trying to excrete a bit of lather
out of the brittle floral-scented miniature bar
of yellowed soap cradled in the pink scalloped soap dish
that was lifted for the company
from its dark abode
beneath the sink,
from behind the cupboard doors
where Ajax powder and liquid Mister Clean,
stood tall in a graveyard of schmattas,
ripped-up pieces of Scotch-Brite,
slabs of hardened sponges
and stiff scrubbing brushes.
Not many.
Company was a rarity in her small garden apartment.
The towels could most of the time be found
folded
on an upper shelf
in the narrow linen closet
close to the bathroom,
tightly packed in with other towels
and sheets and pillow cases
and linens of every type,
some in plastic to protect them,
so that nothing could be removed
from a shelf in that closet
without removing
everything from the shelf.
That’s how tightly they were packed in together.
And that’s how the towels maintained
their stiffness, and their folds.
They were permanently pressed.
That’s the way I found them
when I entered the apartment
after my mother died.
For days I cleaned up the place,
throwing out whatever I could,
keeping whatever I thought was worth keeping.
And as for the linens in the linen closet,
I extracted them all
and piled them up to give away.
Except the guest towels,
which I kept for myself.
I took them home and put them on the shelf
in my own linen closet,
which is considerably larger than my mother’s was,
with lots of room and empty space.
I said to my mother, speaking
into the air like we sometimes do
with dead people, speaking to them
like they are in the room, maybe on or near the ceiling.
“Sorry, mom,” I said, “but I’m going to use these guest towels
that you kept for decades in your linen closet and only took out
when company came, which wasn’t often, as we know.”
And for me it was like a gift from my mother,
a tremendous gift.
To allow myself to use what she would not allow for herself.
To indulge where she would have been uncomfortable
or reticent to do so.
To consume instead of saving. To let go instead of holding back.
To benefit myself. To be selfish.
She’s been gone for thirteen years now.
And every time I wipe my face on one of these brittle checkerboard towels,
I think of my mother.
Some of the stiffness has been washed out of them over the years.
I enjoy them immensely.
I want to live a better life than she did.
I think she might have liked that idea.