Red Bra

Marianne Lonsdale

Word Count 944

My mom called with a request: “Can you babysit your brothers so Dad and I can go out for our 30th wedding anniversary?”

“Sure,” I answered, wondering why my five brothers, who ranged in age from 10 to 21, needed their older sister to babysit. They lived in South San Francisco and I had a one-bedroom apartment about fifteen minutes away.    

“We don’t have enough money right now for a weekend getaway,” she said. Raising a family on a firefighter’s wages meant money was always tight. “So, ummm, we wondered if we could try out your waterbed?”

Mom and Dad wanted to spend their anniversary at my apartment? In my bed?  I glanced over at my king-size bed with the tawny-colored fake fur bedspread. I was single, 25, and didn’t share information on my sex life with Mom, and I didn’t really want to hear about their plans for my bed. 

“You could sleep at our house,” she said. Well, I certainly wouldn’t be staying at my apartment while they celebrated in my bedroom. I agreed and hoped she’d not share any more details.

Throughout childhood, my mom sent the message that sex is a positive thing. I was aware as a young girl of a physical connection between my parents—their quick hugs as they passed each other in our house, my father’s pressing his chest against my mother’s back and nuzzling her neck, the many times we were told to play quietly and not disturb them in their bedroom. She and my father did try to get away for a weekend once or twice a year. I’d often sit on their bed talking with Mom while she packed and put the book The Joy of Sex on top of her clothes.    

We never talked directly about sex—when I was 11, she gave me a brochure to read about how bees pollinate flowers, and followed up with a quick discussion about what to expect when my period started. She was a devout Catholic and told me that she complied with the Church’s rules against using birth control, but she also said that I would need to make my own choices.     

So, on their anniversary, I slept at their house, and they stayed at mine. They came home the following afternoon and handed me my keys. Mom said they had a great time and really liked the waterbed. Dad didn’t look me in the eyes.          

When I walked into my bedroom that night, I spotted a splash of red in one corner, a red lacey bra. Not mine. I held it by a flimsy strap and examined it. It was not much more than a few pieces of lace sewn to two straps. It seemed much too small for my mother. She must have been busting out of it. And somehow it got flung to a corner. I dropped it and tried to oust any thoughts of my mother in the bra or her or my father tossing it to the corner.   

I didn’t know what to do with the red bra. I was too embarrassed to return it and my mother never mentioned it. I don’t know why but I couldn’t throw it away. I certainly was never going to wear it. I shoved the bra in the back of a drawer and didn’t think about it much except when the gaudy color occasionally caught my eye. When I moved from that apartment to a cottage in Oakland, two years later, the red bra came with me.  When I was 30, I bought a condominium and the red bra moved again.

Marvin Gaye’s song Sexual Healing played on the radio at my mom’s house one afternoon when I was visiting. “Sex shouldn’t be a one-time thing,” she said. “I don’t like that song. When you love someone, sex is wonderful, and it just gets better over the years.”  Her words about the passage of time in a relationship were powerful and stayed with me.   

For my parents’ fortieth anniversary, the family celebrated with a dinner in the recreation room of my condominium building. The family had grown over the ten years since their thirtieth anniversary—two marriages, one divorce, and five grandchildren. They still had one son at home but he’d soon be on his own.

By then, I found the red bra more funny than embarrassing. I wrapped the flimsy boob holder in white tissue paper, placed it in a small gift box, and tied a bow around it. After the family dinner, while we all sat around the folding tables, I gave the present to my mother. She slipped the ribbon off the box, took the top off, and rustled the tissue paper as she looked inside.  She looked at me, burst into laughter, her face as red as the bra, and ran a few feet into the bathroom, box in hand. My dad and my siblings looked at me for an explanation. Mom seemed so embarrassed that I just said it was a private joke .. When Mom composed herself and emerged from the bathroom, the incident was over and never mentioned again. 

So much of what we learn in families is not through what we’re told, but through what we observe in attitudes and actions. My mother gave me a sense that sex is fun, loving, and important when you’re young, old, or in the middle. She was in her sixties when my son was born. I remember her sitting in my new rocking chair with my infant boy curled up against her shoulder. Her eyes were closed and a smile lit her face. “This is almost better than sex,” she said. 

Marianne writes personal essays, fiction, and literary interviews. Her work has been published in Literary Mama, Grown and Flown, Pulse and has aired on public radio. She lives in Oakland, California.