In A Nutshell XXXVIII

In a Nutshell

A place set aside to answer 201 autobiographical questions
from a mother for her daughter. This may take awhile...join us if you like.

38. If my parents had only known I did this forbidden thing with my friends:

After my father died, Mama and Forrest and I spent some time with my grandparents. Mama was already under a great deal of stress. Then I sat on a nail, and since my father had died of tetanus from stepping on one, that freaked her out. And then, knowing that I would get in trouble for eating green fruit, when she was looking for me and I was in the apricot tree eating green fruit I didn't dare climb down and stayed there while she got more and more frightened.

It is against this background that my friends, Lupe and Maria, and I decided to explore the irrigation canal. This was strictly forbidden to all three of us, since it was full of water and children can fall in and drown. We didn't drown. But we did fall in. We were all three soaked when we dragged our sad selves back to Lupe and Maria's house. Where their mother, a wise woman who totally understood what my mother was going through, decided that knowing I had fallen into the canal was something that didn't need to happen. She sent one of the older children to ask my mother if I could stay for lunch and play until dinner time, which was allowed. So, this wonderful woman washed my clothes and ironed them dry, dried out my shoes in the oven, and French braided my hair. When she took me home, she apologized to Mama for getting my hair wet, explaining that it was the only way to make it tame enough to braid.

I don't think I have ever told Mama about this. When I was 35 I reminded her of the time I had hitch hiked when I was 20 and she almost had kittens all over again. So, I think that in order to avoid a retroactive meltdown, I'll keep this one to myself. Hear me, Julie? Keeping this one to ourselves.