HEAT

Some traditions are passed down in silence, and underwear

She was a young child, maybe six, when she first noticed.

It was the height of summer, watermelon, ice cream, swimming, fresh tomatoes, and watching her grandmother shed her clothing.

When company came over, a shirt was thrown on.
The underwear only got covered when they went to the store.
Cooking, laundry, weeding, sweeping the porch, every chore was completed in nothing but underwear.

No one in the family ever spoke of this.
It had always been this way, like the sun rising in the morning and setting at dusk.

“No, she’s not crazy,” her mother would reassure friends and neighbors.
“And yes, she’s always done this.”

The girl would watch in awe as her grandmother’s skin seemed to move independently from her bones. Sometimes it felt like she could hear the joints creak as they bent.
The years passed. The skeleton moved slower. But it still moved.

The girl grew older.

And one day, in the heat of summer, her own daughter looked up and asked,

“Momma, why do you clean the house in your underwear?”

She just smiled.