I transferred my sophomore semester to dry-cleaning repairman studies

I transferred my sophomore semester to dry-cleaning repairman studies. My belt elastic had become the bane of an otherwise outstanding year. I’d gotten a blurred inkpen tattooed on my lower back. I was a young woman.

Come springtime, the laundry courses had taken their toll. Repairing laundry machines had been a dream my dead mom wielded, her picture hanging at my high-school lacrosse tournament. Before she was dead, she wore dryers out, I recall. She wore out the agitator in her washer tossing a pound of rocks in there. Sometimes I found her forceful, but she was mine. Her high fever jumped to degrees (in Fahrenheit) that no ER man bargained for.

The altitude raised her underarm temp. That same day she whined, “Betty Lou, you ought to consider this sheer distress. Go study for me. Improve laundry,” she begged. Then she stopped breathing.

Closing in on the pre-wash cycle’s clog, I reflected on my advanced degree. Years back, you wouldn’t think of me bringing washers luck. My mind returned to my mother at the hospital, at the end of a life spent damaging laundry equipment.

If she tacked her regrets onto me is a thing I continue to consider.