Starched white shirts

brought form and smell of wind into the house, snatched as they had been from billowing clotheslines as the storm began. A light sprinkle from my mother's hand tamed them to proper size and shape. Torrents outside could rage but where her calm centered rebellion deflated; the merest whisper of steam playing a game of cool-wet

warm-dry back and forth back and forth smoothed shirts and children as she ironed.