My Black Beauty Coloring Book

   When I unlocked the door to my mother’s house it smelled of cigarette smoke and a backed up septic tank. Only the septic tank was not backed up. I walked in and went straight through to the back door. I left both front and back doors wide open, then opened all the windows in the ranch house to start airing it out. I opened the basement door to find the downstairs covered over heavily with cob webs. I closed that door for another day.

   A cross breeze was picking up in the house now but the stinky smells were still choking. My throat was already dry and scratchy. I went to the bathroom for some water. The only glass there held a set of teeth. I wondered if they were supposed to have been buried them with her? Teeth in, teeth out? I remembered her lips; thin, sunken, and made up, in the coffin. And the Minister asking, “Do you think God put that smile on her lips?” Clearly, the Minister did not know my mother. He mispronounced her name enough times during the funeral.

   The bathroom had recently installed white plastic hand rails in the bathtub, and something to make the seat higher on the toilet. The sink edge had burnt cigarette marks. I put my hair in a ponytail to get down to work.

   I went back to the living room and inspected. Carpet and curtains would have to go first to help reduced the smell, then the wall paper.

   I started rolling the carpet, beginning from the front door. Underneath, newspaper had been used as an underlay for padding and for insulation. The carpet was too big to take out in one piece. I got a box cutter from my van and started slicing up sections and rolling them. The carpet was too dirty, and foul, and burnt, to keep. I dragged the pieces out onto the front lawn. I didn’t think any of the neighbors on this country road would care.   

   Almost half the carpet taken up, I found something different underneath, among the newspapers. A coloring book? My coloring book. Black Beauty. My Black Beauty Coloring Book. I had not seen it since my sixth birthday. It was lying under the carpet, opened, and flattened. Dry and yellowed. Only four pages had been colored in, and those barely in the lines.

   I took it to the dining room and sat at that table. The table had burn marks as well. I pushed a plate size ashtray away and placed my book on the table. I folded the book closed, first. Then examined the cover, matching it to my memories. Then I opened the first page. Then I turned each page to follow the story. When I got to the end, I closed it. I found a clean dry tea towel in the kitchen to wrap the book in and I put the big ashtray on it to help flatten it closed.

   I left the coloring book and took down all the curtains and put them on the front lawn with the carpet pieces and then I locked up for the day.

   Two days later I came back with tools, cleaning supplies, and crayons. I dismantled the bathroom accessories and put them on the front lawn with mother’s walker. I added her mattress and sheets. With my new crayons, I colored in page five of Black Beauty.

   The next day I started removing the wall paper with a steamer. I kept Black Beauty in a kitchen cupboard, away from the steam. Half the day I dragged bags of wall paper shreds out to the front lawn until the my dumpster bin arrived. I stopped work for the day and colored another page.

   The next day I steamed off more wallpaper and loaded the front yard carpet pieces into the bin. Flipping my mother’s old mattress into the bin was fun. A little heavy, awkward, and risky, but fun. More coloring.

   Armed with a broom I twirled away the cobwebs in the basement. I was surprised it took most of a day in itself. By the end my arms wanted to fall off for all the reaching overhead. I colored anyway.

   I found a carpenter who helped restore the living room hardwood floors for the promise of the dining table. He claimed he could refinish the table by carving out the cigarette burns around the edge. His said the tabletop was veneer, and he could inlay a different pattern around the edge to cover the burn parts he would cut out.

   It was only the promise of giving him the dining table as I was still using it to color Black Beauty on.

   My daughter came and mowed the lawns and did some pruning. She found me coloring in my book. I stopped. She didn’t make anything out of it. She just nodded, and then started checking something on her cell phone.

   When I drove her back to her dorm she said, “Coloring is very cool. Art is art.” And gave me a kiss.

   I began finally repainting the inside of the house. First a sealant to cover the smell of smoke in the walls that removing the wallpaper alone would not help. Then an off white paint in all the rooms to make them seem bigger. Three days painting, and only a little bit of coloring.

   When I was at the house next the dumpster was being towed away. The living room floor looked good. The dining room was passable. The bathroom was brightened by the paint. The kitchen linoleum was regrettable, and the sink counter and back splash were chipped and hopeless.

   I spent two more days at the dining table slowly coloring the rest of Black Beauty. Then I called the carpenter to come get the dining table. After he left, I opened my colored Black Beauty Coloring Book on the kitchen counter, and placed dried sage between the pages. I flattened the book closed again. Then I turned it sideways and rolled it into a hard packed tube. Then with a butane barbeque lighter I lit the end of my rolled coloring book and started to smudge.

   The smell of sage filled the air. I went around the outside of the house and then inside. In each room I visited, I chanted away my mother’s memory. Cleansing the home. Smudging away the bad spirits. At the end I found myself in the kitchen, at the sink which held my mother’s big glass ashtray. In it I placed the ashes of my half burnt Black Beauty Coloring Book. The one mother had taken away from me on my sixth birthday. She had pried it from my weak little hands and told me, “You’re too old for this now.”      

   I put the house up for sale the next day.