A pocket full of pegs

An original fictional sample story.

My mother arrived with a bag of pears and no plan to leave before the washing was dry. She had a way of making this sound like a visit instead of an intervention. “Good drying weather,” she said, studying the sky as though it had personally invited her.

I had a baby asleep against my chest and a five-year-old who had built a railway across the kitchen. The washing machine had finished two hours earlier. I could hear the damp clothes settling into a heavier version of themselves behind the little round door.

Mum asked where I kept the pegs. I began explaining that she didn't have to do the washing, that I had meant to hang it out, that the morning had become complicated. She waited until I finished. Then she asked again where I kept the pegs. Under the sink, I said, beside the bag of bags.

My son followed her outside. From the back step, I watched him hand her a blue peg, then a red one, then three at once. She let him decide which colour belonged to each garment. When he hung a small sock sideways, she left it there. I would have straightened it without noticing I was doing so.

They worked slowly enough to discuss an ant, a passing plane, and whether towels got cold when they were wet. The baby shifted against me. I stayed on the step, one hand supporting her head, and felt the strange discomfort of being allowed to watch. There was always another thing I could be doing. The list had become so familiar that rest felt like forgetting something important.

Mum looked up. “There's a pear in the bag for you.” Not a request, not advice. Just information. I went inside, washed one, and ate it over the sink. It was ripe enough to make a mess. For a few minutes, I was occupied by nothing more complicated than keeping the juice off the baby's hair.

When the last shirt was hung, my son returned with six pegs in his pocket. He said they were his wages. Mum said that sounded reasonable, provided they stayed out of the washing machine. They sat at the table and drew a map of the railway while I made tea.

Later, after she had gone, I found the sideways sock. It was dry. So were the perfectly straight shirts beside it. I put them all in the basket and left the six pegs on the kitchen windowsill, where my son had arranged them like little birds.

Illustrative photograph for an original fictional story. Photo: Bruno van der Kraan / Unsplash.