In Mama's Apron Pocket

In Mama’s Apron Pocket

By Heather Ann Martinez

It was always bright and clean in mama’s kitchen. I can still smell her cinnamon rolls baking in the oven and beef stew simmering on the stove. To look at her, you would not think she had a care in the world. If she was ever stressed about anything, she never showed it. She pleasantly cooked and baked for dad, my brother Rhen and me for most of my childhood. I don’t remember a time in my elementary school years that my mother didn’t bake cookies and cakes for school fundraisers and community charity events.

When I was eight, dad took ill. He couldn’t leave the house for nearly a year. Rhen and I never did find out what had dad laid up for so long. All we knew was that things changed in our house. Rhen and I could no longer play hide and seek. We were encouraged to go outside even after dark so that we didn’t disturb our father who had the hardest time sleeping. He sat up coughing most nights. My mother took odd jobs to help our dwindling savings. Dad’s mining job did not offer much in terms of benefits during the time he could not work. My mother took in laundry, baked desserts for fancy parties, made breakfast for the one legged man who didn’t come all the way back from the war. Mama always said we had to be careful around him, because loud noises really bothered him.

It was a week into fall when Rhen began teasing me about my birthday. He told me I wasn’t going to be getting any presents or new clothes for school. He told me I was going to have to be mature and not bother our parents about toys. He said toys were for babies and we weren’t babies anymore. Rhen was only a year older than me and to this day, I still think he is the wisest person I know. Whenever mama and I went into town to buy milk and sugar, she would ask me if I liked a dress or skirt in the department store window. I would tell her the skirt or dress I had sitting in the back of the closet would do for another year. I’d hold back tears whenever she asked me about the doll with the porcelain face. Every girl at school had one of them and they would talk about dresses and hats they would be buying for them over the upcoming weekend. My classmate Allison would dress her doll to look like her. Allison rarely wore the same outfit twice and neither did her doll. While many of the girls in our class envied Allison, I felt sorry for her. She did not have any imagination. She looked like she walked out of a department store catalog and so did her doll. 

One of my other classmates asked me why I never brought my doll to school. I lied and told my classmates that I didn’t want to get her clothes dirty on the playground. The other girls didn’t care if their dolls got dirty or were missing an eye because the boys took them and tossed them around. They knew they could get new ones and new clothes to match. Rhen told me I needed to make do with what I had. I made up stories about my doll and the adventures we had. I would tell my classmates that I took my doll to have tea with my grandmother. I would tell them that my grandmother would make fine clothes for my doll from linens and silk she bought from her trips to Asia. In reality, my grandmother sent us postcards from her trips to Asia. We had not seen her in person for more than two years. She did not even know that my father was ill. If she had known, she probably would have come home to help care for him. I struggled to even look at him. As an adult, I am ashamed to say that I did my best to stay away from my father while he was ill. I kept up with my chores and tried to stay as quiet as possible. I didn’t know what to say to my father and I though that it was best not to say anything at all. He couldn’t carry me on his shoulders or sing me a song or play any games. He coughed day and night. Some said he got the black lung and we could expect to bury him at any time.

Of course, my mother never believed their idle gossip. She would tell us that he was getting better every single day. To prove it, my dad would sit in the living room for part of the morning. He coughed frequently but he was out of bed. Mama assisted him with getting to and from the living room, but she said our father had more strength in his pinky finger than men twice his size. I tried to believe her. Rhen did not even try to believe her. He knew dad was very ill. He knew other men died from working in the mines. Dad never wanted him to do that kind of labor. Dad did everything he could to make certain Rhen stayed in school while he was ill. Mama was determined to keep Rhen in his books and kept encouraging him to dream big dreams. She would whisper the words dream bigger whenever she heard his heart slip into doubt. Rhen would smile.

The night before my ninth birthday, the house seemed quiet. My parents were mumbling in their bedroom. Rhen was opening doors to their room, his room and the bathroom what seemed like every five minutes. He would push me away from any of these doors at any given moment so I wouldn’t hear or see anything. If anyone in our family could keep a secret, it was Rhen. He was tall and thin for his age and I was short and small for being a year younger. The doctor said I was born a bit prematurely and I was always a bit smaller than every one I knew. My mother said I was also prettier and smarter and that’s what mattered.  

Mama kept her hand firmly planted in her apron pocket the morning of my birthday. I wasn’t expecting any presents or clothes or any one of them to remember that I was born nine years ago that day. I want you to know, my dear daughter, how much this birthday meant to me. My mother came to my room with her hand in her apron pocket. She sat on my bed and told me how much she wished she could have bought me clothes out of department store catalogs. She said she didn’t have what some of the other mothers in my class had, but she did have something they did not. She had creativity. She pulled her hand out of her apron pocket and presented me with a tiny silk kimono. She laid it on my bed. It was black and had beautiful flowers on it. I took it in my tiny hand and said that it was too small for me to wear. She said it wasn’t for me to wear. It was for someone else to wear. My father came in and gave me a doll unlike any I had seen before. It had a porcelain face and wooden arms and legs. The eyes had been repainted. The doll’s bonnet and hair were from pieces my mother had discarded from the laundry she had done for our neighbors. The doll had a necklace with a locket that was inscribed with the word love. My brother Rhen came in, jumped on the bed and dropped the locket with the word love inscribed on it for me to wear in my hand. Mama helped me dress my special doll in the kimono, and I put on my locket.

I found out later my father made me that doll out of scraps of wood. Rhen found the porcelain head on the playground. One of the eyes had been poked out in an argument with one of the boys. Mama had written to my grandmother and asked her to send home a kimono for the doll. Mama also made other clothes for the doll over the next few months. Dad did get better. He worked for a newspaper for the rest of his career. He started out as a mailroom manager and eventually became a junior editor. He went back to school and obtained a degree in journalism. Rhen became a scientist. I followed dad and worked for a magazine. I’m giving you my dear daughter this doll with all of the love and memories attached to it. It was crafted in a season when we did not think we had or could have enough. I am hoping that whenever you give in to doubt, this doll will remind you that there is another solution you haven’t thought of yet.