there was a change of government and funds were cut. Perhaps some of the Heritage should be disposed of, it was said. But by now there was so much Heritage jammed in there that just sorting it out would take much more money than anyone wanted to spend. So nothing was done.
I went to the Heritage House myself, the other week. It was in disrepair. The windows were opaque with dust, the front steps were a disgrace: it was clear to see that nothing had been scrubbed off or fixed up in years. I rang the rusted bell for a long time before anyone answered it. Finally the door opened. I could see a long hallway, piled to the ceiling with boxes and crates. Each box was labelled: CORSETS. MIXMASTERS. THUMBSCREWS. CALCULATORS. LEATHER MASKS. CARPET SWEEPERS. CHASTITY BELTS. SHOE BRUSHES. MANACLES. ORANGE STICKS. MISCELLANEOUS.
From behind the door an old woman appeared. She was wearing a chenille bathrobe. She let me in, pushing aside a stack of yellowing newspapers. The place stank of mouse droppings and mildew.
She nodded at me, she smiled. She hadn’t lost the knack. Then she launched into a stream of explanations; but the language she spoke was obsolete, and I couldn’t make out a word.
BRING BACK MOM: AN INVOCATION
Bring back Mom, bread-baking Mom, in her crisp gingham apron just like the aprons we sewed for her in our Home Economics classes and gave to her for a surprise on Mother’s Day— Mom, who didn’t have a job because why would she need one, who made our school lunches— the tuna sandwich, the apple, the oatmeal cookies wrapped in wax paper— with the rubber band she’d saved in a jar; who was always home when we got there doing the ironing or something equally boring, who smiled the weak smile of a trapped drudge as we slid in past her, heading for the phone, filled with surliness and contempt and the resolve never to be like her. Bring back Mom. who wanted to be a concert pianist but never had the chance and made us take piano lessons, which we resented— Mom, whose aspic rings and Jello salads we ate with greed, though later derided— pot-roasting Mom, expert with onions though anxious in the face of garlic, who received a brand-new frying pan from us each Christmas— just what she wanted— Mom, her dark lipsticked mouth smiling in the black-and-white soap ads, the Aspirin ads, the toilet paper ads, Mom, with her secret life of headaches and stained washing and irritated membranes— Mom, who knew the dirt, and hid the dirt, and did the dirty work, and never saw herself or us as clean enough— and who believed that there was other dirt you shouldn’t tell to children, and didn’t tell it, which was dangerous only later. We miss you, Mom, though you were reviled to great profit in magazines and books for ruining your children —that would be us— by not loving them enough, by loving them too much, by wanting too much love from them, by some failure of love— (Mom, whose husband left her for his secretary and paid alimony, Mom, who drank in solitude in the afternoons, watching TV, who dyed her hair an implausible shade of red, who flirted with her friends’ husbands at parties, 
