The woman who owns the dry-cleaning business that we use adores my mom.  They met last week while my mom was in town and honestly, I’m not sure I will ever be able to drop off or pick up clothes without talking about my mom again.  It was love at first sight.  Partly because my mom is very friendly and usually chatty and smiling.  But mostly because Sarah, the woman who owns the business couldn’t believe my mom wasn’t my sister.  “She’s so young!”   

This isn’t the first time someone told me they love my mom.  And definitely also not the first time someone has pointed out that my mom is very young.  Like, very young.  I’ve heard it all. 

“How young was she when she had you?”

“She’s your older sister, not your mother!”

And my favorite, right out of Sarah’s mouth last week.  Looking at me, “So, you are the oldest sister then, right?  No sister older than you!”

Look.  I’m about to be 43, not 57.  She was 25 when she had me.

Sarah runs the dry-cleaning business and although her husband is always with her, he pretty much never leaves the old couch that’s pushed up against the back wall and faces an old, 13” black and white TV that’s always on.  Sarah is always on as well.  She sometimes joins him on the couch when business is slow because I’ve seen her jump up and run to the front counter when I’ve walked through the door.  That little jingly bell at the top of the door initiates her Pavlovian response.  But she is the only one who ever jumps up.  I think her husband is Pavlov in this scenario.  It’s not exactly like they’re back there rock/paper/scissoring this thing.  She is the one who sits by the ancient sewing machine at the front of the shop, mending dresses and hemming clothes.  She is the one who knows how to use the register for transactions.  She is working.  And he lets her.

We’ve been going to this dry-cleaning business for the ten years that we’ve lived in our town, but somewhere around year 3, the former owner sold it to Sarah and her husband.  What was once a casual errand of dropping off dress shirts and sweaters suddenly became a friendly interaction and a getting-to-know one another.  It’s my favorite errand in town. 

In addition to always working, Sarah is always smiling.  Her English is broken but her spirit is not.  She will celebrate and cheer and jump and smile at every expression I have that merits joy.  During the pandemic, I don’t know how their business survived.  We stopped going for a long time, but my husband when back to the office full-time after six months at home.  So, we had reason to return to the dry cleaner when almost no one else did.  It was painfully empty in their store.

She comforted me, as I shared that my business was suffering and encouraged me to find something great when it eventually closed.  She confided in me that their business never returned to what they were doing in 2019 but assured me that she had reason to smile “every day.”  Her optimism and resolve were startling.  She had so little and was grateful for so much.

She has watched my daughter grow up for the last 7 years and sometimes gifts us boxes of Asian pears in December.  We fight over who gets the “extras” after we have each had one of our own.  She puts the Christmas card that we send her up on the wall behind the register, where it stays all year long.  We are friends.

Today, I stopped in and dropped off a few sweaters while picking a few more up.  The every-few-weeks dance we do in the wintertime.  Sarah’s husband was alone, comfortably snug against the back cushion of the well-worn couch in the back.  I knew from experience that the jingling bell on the door wouldn’t be enough to rouse him.  His Pavlovian response is broken.  Or perhaps intentionally still.  I shouted, “good morning!” implying that he might not have noticed me, even though we could see each other clearly.  He didn’t move at first and I wondered if I would have to shout, “how are you?” as well.  I wasn’t prepared for the aggression that “can you help me?” would feel, coming out of my mouth.  But he started getting up. 

He’s never grumpy, just aloof.  Somewhere else.  Never making eye contact.  Sometimes whispering words that I never understand.  I’m sure there is a reason he is this way and I’m sure I’ll never know what it is.  He deserves more sympathy from me than painting him in this horrible light.  This is the permission we give ourselves to put others down.    

We’ve done this one other time.  Just him and me.  He eventually located my clothes for pick-up, and I left with a receipt for the ones I dropped off.  But I have no idea how it happened and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either.  As the fumbling around with buttons started, I realized the tiny span of counter that stood between him and me.  Why was it so small?  It was barely wide enough for the register.  Who designed this thing?  The baby bottle coin collector that had been sitting there, empty for years, urging customers to donate to babies precariously sat at the very edge.  The old coffee can was big enough to hold 50 pens but only held four.  It was taking up more space than was necessary.

I was doing anything to find something else to take up more space than the silence between us.

And then Sarah walked in.  She had two small coffees balanced on top of each other in one hand and a plain bagel with nothing on it in the other, secure enough to open the door.  She was smiling, of course.  She gave me her usual giant hello and laugh and asked me about my daughters.  As I was returning the hello, she ran over behind the counter, saying something in Korean to her husband, whom I realized was still trying to figure out the right entry on the computer.  She shushed him away and he reluctantly lifted his hands up from the keys, walked around the counter, and back to the couch, slightly slower than before.  I watched him go, as I was chatting with Sarah in her sing-song way, the whirring sound of the garment conveyor lulling us all into our familiar rhythm.  He shuffled straight back and took his place on the right side of the couch, his expression unchanged from the last I saw him look down to find the right combination of numbers to retrieve my clothes. 

I wondered guiltily if the story I made up about him this whole time was totally wrong.

Just as I was rethinking the whole thing, Sarah asked, “how’s your mom?  She’s SO YOUNG!  So young!”

Sorry, husband.  I have bigger problems on my hands.