Why I Believed, As A Child, that People Had Sex in Bathroomsby Cecilia Woloch
Because they loved one another, I guessed.
Because they had seven kids and there wasn’t
a door in that house that was ever locked —
except for the bathroom door, that door
with the devil’s face, two horns like flame
flaring up in the grain of the wood
(or did we only imagine that shape?)
which meant the devil could watch you pee,
the devil could see you naked.
Because that’s where people took off their clothes
and you had to undress for sex, I’d heard,
whatever sex was — lots of kissing and other stuff
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Because at night, when I was scared, I just
climbed into my parents’ bed. Sometimes
other kids were there, too, and we slept
in a tangle of sheets and bodies, breath;
a full ashtray on the nightstand; our father’s
work clothes hung over a chair; our mother’s
damp cotton nightgown twisted around her legs.
Because when I heard babies were made from sex
and sex was something that happened in bed,
I thought: No, the babies are already there
in the bed. And more babies came.
Because the only door that was ever locked
was the bathroom door — those two inside
in the steam of his bath, her hairspray’s mist,
because sometimes I knocked and was let in.
And my father lay in the tub, his whole dark body
under water, like some beautiful statue I’d seen.
And my mother stood at the mirror, fixing her hair,
or she’d put down the lid of the toilet
and perched there, talking to him.
Because maybe this was their refuge from us —
though they never tried to keep us away.
Because my mother told me once
that every time they came home from the hospital
with a brand new baby, they laughed
and fell in love all over again
and couldn’t wait to start making more.
Should this have confused me? It did not.
Because I saw how he kissed the back of her neck
and pulled her, giggling, into his lap;
how she tucked her chin and looked up at him
through her eyelashes, smiling, sly.
So I reasoned whatever sex they had, they had
in the bathroom — those steamy hours
when we heard them singing to one another
then whispering, and the door stayed locked.
Because I can still picture them, languid, there,
and beautiful and young — though I had no idea
how young they were — my mother
soaping my father’s back; her dark hair
slipping out of its pins.
Because what was sex, after that? I didn’t know
he would ever die, this god in a body, strong as god,
or that she would one day hang her head
over the bathroom sink to weep. I was a child,
only one of their children. Love was clean.
Babies came from singing. The devil was wood
and had no eyes.
Found here.
where David Brooks talks about people not truly being adults until their 30s rang true, which makes me very grateful that I had you as an influence as I came into my own adulthood.
. It’s located less than 2 miles north of town on a piece of private property that the family has opened up to tourist for a nominal fee paid on the honor system. The story goes that the family purchased the land in the late 1940s and, when improving the property, took down an old dilapidated building that may have been the house that Pa built with lumber he got on credit. Not long after that Little House illustrator Garth Williams came through in search of the Ingall’s house and old dugout site. (See 
for more detailed information.)
, there is a significant gap. During that time another wheat crop was eaten by the “grasshoppers,” Ma had a baby in November after a second major crop failure, and a month later Pa applied for food assistance because “your petitioner is wholly without means.” The following year, the family moves to Iowa to work in the hotel industry, the little baby boy Ingalls – who is never referenced in the books – dies along the way (almost as old as my baby Henry is now. Weep.) Baby Grace is born in Iowa and the family is in such pitiful state that a childless old lady offers to adopt Laura. I thought 
was bad – they actually had a conversation about the likelihood of them starving before spring – but apparently that was small potatoes to this kind of destitute heartbreak.
Marshins 