"Dirty Dishes"
A Short Story By Lo Brewer
Dirty Dishes © StockSnap/Pixaby
“When I was in the military…” was the opening to all my father’s many speeches. I was the only one in our family that saw my father as this great orator. My mother referred to everything that came out of his mouth as “another one of your father’s ‘stories.’” The word ‘story’ was always surrounded by air quotes, as if to somehow further invalidate what he was saying. But she never vocalized this dig louder than a whisper. My sister Liza always found the most negative ways to portray our father. Any time she was forced to sit through one of his lectures, which, for her, was often, she could later be heard telling her friends that he berated her, belittled her or harangued her. (I had to look that last one up.) Liza was always being so dramatic. And I didn’t understand why she chose to make things so hard for herself. If only she listened, she’d never have to be ‘harangued’ again.
Sir, which is what we called our father, posted a monthly chore chart on the refrigerator. Everyone in the family had tasks to complete. Sir’s were mostly outdoors chores, mowing the lawn, washing the car, raking leaves, things that could be done on the weekends since he spent so much time at work during the week. Our mother’s chores were mostly of the domestic nature, laundry, ironing, cleaning and cooking. Liza and I got the rest of the chores, garbage, tending to the vegetable garden in the back yard, shining Sir’s shoes for work, and washing the dishes. Liza and I had an agreement, regardless of who’s day it was to do what, I would do the dirty chores (garbage and gardening) and she would do the others. I was a tomboy so the opportunity to play in dirt was beyond exciting. And toting garbage from the house to the bins directly beside it didn’t really seem like a chore at all. Liza liked the idea of spitting on Sir’s shoes to shine them. She was obeying his wishes and disrespecting him all at the same time. She said she liked doing dishes. “It’s the only time everything in the world is quiet,” she would say. Liza would stare out the window aimlessly, waiting for the water to get hot. I used to wonder what she was thinking about.
But that all changed one night. Liza had snuck out with her friend Deedee. She tried to sneak back in but Sir was waiting for her in the dark. As soon as she wrangled the chain lock off the door Sir turned on the lights downstairs. I watched from the top of the stairs as he ripped her from head to toe. She must have borrowed one of Deedee’s dresses. It was too tight and too short and that certainly didn’t miss Sir’s observatory tirade. By the time he was done Liza was fuming. She had tears in her eyes but she was too angry to let a single one drop. She tried to push past Sir to come up the stairs but he stopped her.
“Where do you think you’re going? You forgot to do the dishes before you went out for your romp. That’s how I knew you were gone Liza. I went up to your room to wake you up to do the dishes and saw that you’d left. If it wasn’t for your sister telling us that you were out with that Deedee girl, we would have had the police searching for you.”
Liza was looking past him, up the stairs at me. How she could see me there in the dark, I don’t know. But she was staring straight into my face, glaring.
Sir turned Liza around and walked her back to the kitchen. I could hear the water turn on and Sir say, “You have no respect. When I was in the military…” I didn’t listen for more. I just walked back to the room Liza and I shared and tried my best to fall asleep before she came up the stairs.
After that night, there was a clear line drawn straight down the middle of our family, Liza on one side, Sir and I on the other, Mama on the sidelines keeping her head low and her nose clean. Liza felt betrayed by me. And she was done doing anything that Sir wanted her to. What started as normal teenage rebellion on her part was amped up by 1000%. Liza outright refused to do any of her chores. She would pick fights with Sir every chance she got. Her behavior began to strain her relationship with Mama too. She couldn’t support Liza’s lack of deference for Sir. And I surely wasn’t going to support it. I loved and respected Sir too much for that.
As much of a problem as Liza was becoming, her role in our family as the defiant, rebellious teen, fit perfectly in our dysfunctional unit. We all had our roles and we played them well.
Mama, usually silent and stoic, tried her best to behave as if the upheaval in our house wasn’t happening. She went about her wifely and motherly duties with robotic precision. Food was always cooked. Laundry was always done. My father’s shirts were ironed and starched to his satisfaction. We were dropped off and picked up from school on time.
I, on the other hand, tried my best to be like neither of them. Neither defiant, nor robotic, I was engrossed in everything my father said and did. I followed his orders to a T. In addition to my own chores I started doing Liza’s just so that we could have a little peace. When we’d sit for dinner and my mother would stare off into the distance at what I could only assume was a mirage of the family she wished she had, I would sit head in hand, staring at Daddy as he talked about his day.
I did everything in my power to be my sister’s opposite and I was praised for it. She was a real girl’s girl. Anything having to do with hair, nail polish, lipstick, pink, leopard print or boys, Liza was all over it. But I didn’t care about any of those things, because Sir didn’t care about any of those things. He’d always wanted boys and he was very vocal about it. “You’re the son I always wanted,” he’d say to me, only half joking. So, I played with trucks and army men instead of dolls. I ran around with the little boys next door and scrapped up my knees on the jungle gym. I played every sport that our school district offered. I would have tried out for the football team if my mother didn’t put her foot down.
Sir and I had private jokes and asides that Mama and Liza weren’t privy to because they weren’t a part of our club. It was then, in those days, that I was his biggest champion, and he mine, because we were best friends.
Sir’s role was that of the strict authoritarian. He made the rules. If you followed them, like I did, then you could see him for the great man that he was…the way I saw him. If you didn’t follow his rules, well, I guess Liza could tell you how well that worked out for her.
I’m not sure when I stopped being the son my father always wanted. But somehow, on the eve of my 13th birthday I was starting to have an appreciation for the things my big sister had always held in such high esteem, being cute, and getting boys to like you. I was starting to have friends my own age. I wanted to hang out with them more, and Sir less. I didn’t love him any less though, not even when he started turning cold towards me. And I definitely didn’t stop doing what I was told. I’d take a cold shoulder over the screaming fights he’d have with Liza, any day.
Our distance was amplified by the fact that Sir was spending more time away from home traveling for work. A calm formed in our house when it was just Liza, Mama and me. I treasured that time so much that I began wishing that Sir’s trips would last longer. Liza said she wished he never came back at all. And even though we weren’t as close as we’d been, I felt the need to defend Sir.
“But Liza, Daddy works so hard so that we can have all this stuff,” I said pointing dramatically at the house surrounding us.
“Bug, I love you. But you’re really fucking stupid,” Liza said. “You have no idea who he is. Your beloved Sir is not on a business trip.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about and before I could come back with a stinging insult, Mama appeared in the doorway of our bedroom with a lazy, “That’s enough girls,” and then she was gone again.
How dare Liza say that I didn’t know Sir. I knew him better than anyone. I was the closest to him. Her comments renewed in me a zeal to be my father’s protector and biggest advocate.
One night while Sir was out, we all sat on Mama’s bed playing a board game. She was in a good mood, which was rare. Whenever Mama’s spirits were high, Liza and I capitalized on it. We’d cling to her until her mood reverted to its usual catatonic. As we sat playing the second game of the night, Liza noticed that the phone in Sir’s office had begun to ring. Mama got up and shut her bedroom door, her silent way of telling us to ignore it.
We tried our best to pretend that we weren’t hearing the phone ring repeatedly. But Sir’s office was right next to our parents’ bedroom and the ringing went on for nearly a half hour. Finally, Liza couldn’t take it anymore and decided answer the phone. Mama told her not too, but Liza has never been the listening type so she picked it up anyway. When she did, the person on the other end hung up.
“Liza, just come back and play the game!” I yelled. I could tell my mother’s mood was starting to change. Her face turning to stone right before my eyes.
The rings continued for a few more minutes until our house phone began to ring. My mother picked it up the first few times but was met with a dial tone. Finally, when my sister picked up the phone the voice on the other end said, “Is your father there?”
Liza replied, “Don’t worry about where my father is. I want to know why you hung up on my mother!”
“Why is your mother picking up the phone? I thought they were divorced,” the voice on the other end said.
Mama pried the phone from Liza’s hand ushered us out of her room. We sat listening outside the door. I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I soon realized that Liza had been right all along. I didn’t know Sir at all. My heart sank with every bit of information I could glean from Mama’s conversation with the caller. The woman on the phone was Rose Cunningham, one of Sir’s clients. They’d been in a relationship for over a year. He told her he was divorced and that his daughters lived with him. When she’d pressed him about meeting his daughters he abruptly ended their relationship. She was hurt and wanted answers but he’d begun ignoring her calls in recent days. So she began calling every number she had for him, which led to that night’s debacle.
I’d heard enough. I got up and walked to our bedroom. Liza followed. Usually a gloater, Liza refrained from the requisite I-told-you-so, and just sat next to me on the bed.
“When I was little I used to be like you,” Liza started. “Sir used to take me out on daddy/daughter dates. He’d leave you home with Mama and we’d go to get ice cream, or to the park. I loved it man. Like really loved it. This one time we went to the movies. I think I was maybe five or six. Anyway, when we got to the theater, he took off his wedding ring and put it in his pocket. Some lady met us there. And she saw the movie with us. Then we went and ate hamburgers with her after. He had his arm around her, like he used to do with Mama. And he told me that we shouldn’t tell Mama about how much fun we had without her because she would get sad. So I had to keep it a secret. And I never said anything to her. I didn’t really understand what was going on then. But when I got older I started connecting the dots. I realized that he was still up to his old tricks. I can’t respect a person like that.”
“What do you think Mama will do?” I asked. It was the first time I’d thought about how our mother must have felt.
“Probably nothing. She never does shit. I think she’s always known. She may be a bit out of it but she’s not a fucking retard. But now she can’t ignore it. I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
Just then the door opened. Mama told us to go to bed and not talk or think about what happened ever again. She said she would handle this. Neither of us was particularly convinced that she would. But we complied and went to bed. I crawled into bed with Liza like I used to do when I was little. And for once she didn’t object. She even wiped away my tears while I cried myself to sleep.
We woke up when Sir finally came home from his business trip around 2am. Liza and I laid there, awake but silent, waiting to see what Mama was going to do. To our surprise, she immediately confronted him. She was firm and steady in her approach. I found myself feeling proud of her for not cowering before him, or pretending that the problem simply didn’t exist, as I’d seen her do before.
Sir waited for her to finish, not interrupting once. But when she was done talking he began to spin his tale. Rose was a crazy woman, obsessed with him. He would never betray us in such a way. In fact, my mother should be ashamed for believing he could hurt her in that way. By the time he was finished he’d made all the women in his life out to be lunatics. But for the first time in my life I realized that he was the crazy one. Only a crazy person would take their family for granted, lie to them, and pit them against each other, the way my father had.
Unwilling to listen to any more of the spin doctor’s tirade, Mama went to bed. Liza and I just laid there, unable to go back to sleep, listening to Daddy’s movements through the house. He walked into the kitchen, and yelled, “That little bitch didn’t do the dishes!”
Liza held me tight as we heard him stomp up the stairs towards our room. When the door flung open Liza jumped out of bed, “Sir, I’ll do dishes. I’ll do them right now!”
“Liza go back to bed. Bug, get your ass up!” he screamed. It was Tuesday, my night to do the dishes. With all the trauma happening that night I’d completely forgotten.
“I’ll do them!” Liza said as she stood in front of me.
“No, lay your ass back down, Liza. Your sister needs to learn just like you do, to respect me and my rules.”
He reached past Liza and grabbed me by the arm and dragged me down the stairs to the kitchen. I started running the hot water and stared blankly out of the window as he barked at me. “You’re getting just like your sister…disrespectful. When I was in the military…”
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