joseph e. lerner

 four: the infant ismelda

Her basket almost full, Catherine paused, and, blinking, stared at the sky.

Moments ago, the sun had broken through the clouds, and she imagined light still playing against the stark white sheets dangling from the clothesline, the bright smocks and aprons, the multi-colored headscarves, shawls, and blouses and skirts the three sisters favored. One item—hers—chillingly familiar. She had washed it by mistake.

Nora did her laundry at home, and the boarders fended for themselves, but Catherine, who slept in the garret or attic though sometimes on a cot in the kitchen, did her laundry and the sisters’ together.

The sun again vanished, and scattered raindrops fell.

She knelt, frantic, separating the sisters’ clothes from hers, Catherine’s mostly undergarments, petite and frilly.

She’d been married once, bore a child, though the infant had died. Her name Ismelda.

And there, stuck to a blouse of Mary’s (and about the same size), Ismelda’s sleeper, cobalt blue and adorned with snowflakes and polar bears.

Catherine held it to her face trying to breathe in the infant’s fragrance. Gone, of course.

More rain fell, the wind buffeting the clothes still on the line. Fingers stiff and achy, she took down the remaining clothes, piled them inside the basket, and, with sleeper in one arm and basket in the other, Catherine hurried back inside the hotel.