MRS. WALSH

      She let out a little puff of horror, as the paper bag she clutched to her chest began to slowly come apart – betraying her efforts to conceal its contents. The bottom of the paper bag was wet, which had the unfortunate effect of weakening the strength of the paper. This made for an ever-widening gap to increase beyond any possibility of avoiding, for Mrs. Walsh, a tragic event. The sound of glass began to ting-a-ling from inside the bag. Then the bottoms of what appeared to be brown bottles began to make their presence known,  pushing to be the first to emerge from their soggy prison, like impatient and eager pieces of evidence.
       Poor Mrs. Walsh, her face reddened as she bent over in a futile attempt to entrap the bottles in her wide lap. Sadly, that only served to squeeze them more out of her control. Suddenly, the entire bottom of the bag ripped open and every one of the empty bottles tumbled out. They landed at her feet in a jarring dance, no longer hidden cleverly beneath articles of clothing and other personal whatnots; but exposed for all to see, as they bounced and rolled about the floor. Fortunately, Budweiser made sturdy glassware, and none of the bottles broke. The only thing that did break was Mrs. Walsh’s composure and her long trail of secret drinking. 
       Standing about five feet tall, Mrs. Walsh had the kind of physique that resembled the contours of a street-corner post office box. Her white hair was tinged with blue and had long ago begun to thin. If you had to guess, you could safely say she was closing in on 70. She wore coke bottle spectacles, which made her eyes overly large and somewhat disorienting. When they landed on me, they had the curious effect of making me feel strangely small, disarming any thoughts of disobeying her. She was a widow, living alone, her husband having died years before. She said she had a handful of children and grandchildren, scattered back in the Midwest somewhere, but no one ever seemed to visit.  
        She made her first appearance in our home shortly after our mother had left the family. I was seven and my brother, Bill, was nine. Dad, who had a full-time job in downtown Portland, felt it was important to have an adult presence in the house during the day. Every morning, Monday through Friday, Dad would drive over to Mrs. Walsh’s house and pick her up and bring her back to our house. Then he’d go off to work, leaving her in command. It was during those daytime hours that Bill and I quickly learned not to doubt her authority. She exuded a powerful kindness we didn’t want to challenge. When she said, “clean your room,” we cleaned our rooms. When she said, “bring your dirty clothes up to the washroom,” we did. When she said, “wipe your feet before entering the house,” we did. When she said, “dinner is at five pm sharp,” we were seated at the dinner table at five. When she said, “clean your plate,” we cleaned our plates. God forbid, if you didn’t, you heard all about the starving people all over the world, especially in China. 
       We lived in a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, lush with old trees and well-tended yards. Our house had two stories, the main floor being Mrs. Walsh’s domain. There, she tended to light household duties, all of which were perfectly timed to be completed before her favorite soap opera began at 3 pm. She could always be found in the big stuffed chair, glued to The Guiding Light, clutching a beverage in a plastic cup with one hand, and gripping the side arm of the chair with the other. Little did we know what that beverage was. 
     Six years had transpired since Mrs. Walsh had joined our little family. We had adopted her, and she had adopted us. Nothing, in all that time, had given us the slightest reason to suspect there existed a hidden issue with alcohol in this good Christian woman. You can imagine our surprise at the sight of nearly a dozen empty beer bottles spread out on the kitchen floor as we watched them wobble to a stop. The immediate silence that followed this shocking moment held the four of us frozen in our tracks. But that silence was quickly broken by the faint mutterings of mortification that began to emanate from Mrs. Walsh. 
       “Oops,” she said as she clutched her flower-printed apron, and bent over even further to gather up the offending evidence. Then more utterances issued forth in an escalating volume of panic. “Oh my…oh dear…oh… where did these come from? How did they get into…?” 
       When I regained my wits, I bent down with Mrs. Walsh and offered to help her, but she brushed me off with urgency, and said,
       “No! I got it. I’ll take care of this.”
       It was painful to witness Mrs. Walsh’s extreme embarrassment. I couldn’t have put it into words at the time, but she was my pal, my friend. She was the one who caught me smoking downstairs and threatened to tell my father, but she never did. She was the one who saved me many times from aggravated assault and attempted murder by an angry older brother who beat the crap out of me on a regular basis; but not if I got upstairs to her safety zone first. She was the one who pretended not to notice that I hid my stewed tomatoes, which I hated, in my napkin when I thought she wasn’t looking. Maybe I didn’t know it to say it, but I loved Mrs. Walsh. So, when she refused my help in covering up the traitorous bottles, I stood back up and looked at my dad and Bill, and saw that they both had impish smiles on their faces. I knew then that Mrs. Walsh wasn’t in trouble and would survive this unmentionable moment.
       Within the following year, Mrs. Walsh, for health reasons, had to retire. Of course, our house felt empty without her. When I learned that she was in the hospital, I went to visit her. I had just turned fifteen. She was so happy to see me and wanted to know all about what was going on in my life. I don’t know how long we talked, probably not too long. 
      As I got up to leave, Mrs. Walsh reached out and gently grasped my hand, and said, “You’re a good boy. You’ve always been a good boy.” She smiled at me, her big eyes behind her coke bottle glasses began to well up with tears, and as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue,  she said, 
       “Oh my. Would you look at me.”