On Her Terms

Playing outside is what Monga called locking us out for the day.

In the winter we'd have to beg, with the doorbell, to be let in for minutes. And we had to be good and frozen enough to justify ringing the doorbell. So, by the time Monga decided to unlock the door for us, we were stiff and teeth-chattery. We'd remove our boots outside, then go into the dining room to lay our gloves, hats, and socks over floor vents to dry. Sometimes, I'd run my hands under lukewarm water in the kitchen sink as my mom had taught me to do.

In the summer, we'd leave the house in the morning to play by the pool, run through the sprinkler, hit walnuts into the fence with a stick, ride bikes...We never lacked for things to do outdoors. Still, there were certain things we had to rely on Monga for, like food and a bathroom. So, we'd put down our stick (or bike, dirt clod, army guy) and go around to the front of the house to ring the doorbell. Most of the time, we never got an answer (there were several times when we got in trouble for our poop being found under a pile of walnut leaves).

But, on her terms, she'd open up the sliding glass door in back and yell,

"You kids want some watermelon?"

And we'd come running. We'd sit on the back patio in those orange vinyl swivel chairs and spin around until Monga came out with our slices of watermelon. We'd sit there, legs spread, holding the watermelon and taking huge sloppy bites out of, letting the juice run down our chins and hands, and watch it splatter on the concrete. Spit black seeds out into the grass (or at each other). When we were done, we threw the rinds into the garbage out there, hosed off the patio ("I don't want any damned ants on the patio!"), and ran off to play--all of the being locked out forgotten and forgiven.

One day, she opened the sliding glass door and yelled,

"You kids want lunch?"

We ran up to the house.

"Not in here. I'll bring it to you in the front yard...You can have a picnic." She said "picnic" like it would be next to Disneyland in fun.

We walked around to the front of the house and found some shade beneath one of the purple lilac trees. I'm sure we did things like poke each other with grass and pluck lilacs from their trees.

Monga came out with egg salad sandwiches and watermelon. The sandwiches were on Wonder bread, each cut into four perfect pieces. All three of us had an equal-sized slice of watermelon. We bit into our egg salad sandwich or our watermelon, while Monga turned and walked back into the house without a word.

"Thank you, Monga." I said.

With the smacking of our lips and the spitting out of seeds, we couldn't hear Monga locking the door behind her.