My personal essay, “The Mushroom House” was recently published in Meaningful Conflicts, the Art of Friction. Here is my reading of about a third of the story during the Off Campus Writers Workshop book launch on April 30th. Below is the text since the video is quite soft.
The picture on the screen is my mom’s painting of three mushrooms on our kitchen wall.
I’m Sandy Kubillus and my story is The Mushroom House. It’s about my mom’s courage to defy my father and make our house different than everyone else’s.
Mom held a drawing she’d cut out from a magazine and eyed the peach-colored wall next to the kitchen table. She wore her painting clothes: a white sleeveless cotton blouse with splatters of various colors from previous projects. The stains contrasted with her auburn hair styled in a beehive hairdo. Oil paint jars and artist brushes sat on top of the table.
I grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator. When I looked back at Mom, she was holding a paintbrush in her right hand, while she applied the first brushstrokes of brown paint to the five-by-ten-foot section of wall. The half-inch dark brown streak contrasted against the peach wall like a newspaper headline.
Years ago, my dad, with the help of my mom, painted these walls—not one drop out of place. Dad never allowed me or my siblings to help, saying, “You’re not good enough. You can learn when you get your own house.”
My brow furrowed. “Wha…what are you doing?” I pushed my sandy blond bangs away from my eyes and moved closer. Even though I was a senior in high school, Dad would yell at me if I accidentally slammed a door or dropped the toilet seat lid, reminding me it was his house, and he allowed me the privilege to live there. “Did you ask Dad if you could paint on the kitchen wall?”
“It’s my house too!” Mom’s face flushed. “I don’t care what your father thinks. This wall needs something, so I’m going to paint this picture.” She thrust a drawing of three mushrooms at me.
My face contorted into a smirk. I imagined a yelling match with Mom’s face turning red before she ran into the bathroom to hide her tears and turn on the fan to smother the honk of blowing her nose.
“Okay,” I sighed. I grabbed my novel from the kitchen table and headed into the living room, waiting for the fight to begin.
An hour after Mom started painting, Dad walked up the basement steps and entered the kitchen. I eavesdropped from my rocking chair while I pretended to read.
Dad cleared his throat—then silence.
I tried not to look shocked as Dad walked into the living room shaking his head, his lips pursed on his clean-shaven face while he picked up the eleven-hundred-page Atlas Shrugged.
I could never get away with doing anything to Dad’s precious walls. Curiosity got the better of me, so I closed my book and walked into the kitchen.
Mom turned around and noticed me watching her.
“Dad’s okay with this?” I shook my head in surprise, admiring her courage to stand up to him. Maybe he thought it wasn’t worth a fight.
“I don’t think he’s happy about it, but it’s something I want to do.” She smiled with a smug expression. “Besides, it’s too late now.”
Read the rest of the story and many others, order a copy of Meaningful Conflicts at Amazon.com.
It’s so nice to see you again, and hear you read that section of your story. Congratulations on getting published!
I hope your doggies are doing ok. I now have two cocker spaniel sisters Rosie and Baby who keep me very busy. Come visit our blog if you have time.
Thanks for reading my post, Chris. I’ll check out your blog. I tend to get overwhelmed when I am teaching and don’t blog for long periods of time. I still have Buffy, my blind cocker spaniel who is now 14 and doing okay.