The Laundry Hangs at Noon by Ginger Tolman

The Laundry Hangs at Noon | Ginger Tolman

I landed in Comiso long after the last bus, my phone missing, my luggage ruptured. I bundled it together and hailed the singular taxi. Dante’s English was better than my phrasebook, and he was a storyteller. He pointed out the passing silhouettes of ancient olive trees, we were further south than Tunis, the sand I would sweep off my balcony tomorrow would be Saharan, try the scacce at the panificio. He spoke of death, of grapes grown on volcanoes, how blood was shed every harvest, and the wine that came of it.

We pulled up to my daughter’s neighborhood, dark and questionable, precisely her taste. Dante glanced in the rearview mirror. 

“Is this address?”

I shrugged.

“It’s what I have written,” showing him the note on the napkin.

He shrugged.

“I wait; I too have a daughter.”

He unloaded my luggage and lingered. I rang Chloe’s apartment, she ran down with Cuan, a bulwark of a dog, who barked and bolted towards me for kisses. Chloe, my budding stoic, hesitant about hugs and affection, wrapped me up tight in her arms and didn’t let go. The driver watched, smiled, and left us with a wave. 

It was April. I had never heard of Ragusa, did not know much of Sicily. Photos and maps showed me something small and picturesque. A Unesco listing gave it legitimacy for baroque architecture. It had survived one of the world’s most massive earthquakes when Mt. Etna erupted in 1693, killing 60,000, destroying villages and triggering tsunamis. In the U.S., we were hanging witches in Salem.

My sister had died the previous December. I was by her side and Chloe was by mine. With grief bellowing at me, I quit my job, fired my husband, poured wine all over it, and lit a match. So, when my daughter suggested I join her in Italy in April, to create something, or just breathe, it didn’t seem any less prudent. 

In six weeks I would adventure drive Chloe and Cuan back to her work in London via Italy, France, and Belgium, in an older Volvo with failing brakes.

That night, my bed felt like a board with sheets on it. The sun came up earlier than planned, and with it the sound of neighbors making love. Really going at it. My hips hurt and I hadn’t seen any Saharan sand yet, but I trusted it would be plentiful, so I got up to forage for coffee and a broom. 

Chloe scooped out Lavazza from a foil pouch and fixed me one espresso, then another. She scraped jam onto a small piece of dry toast. Italian breakfast she said, rusks, lunch will be different. We’ll find scacce, a local food of lore. Now, let’s walk to the old town. 

I live in Park City, Utah at 7700 ft at the top of 342 steep and splintery steps from Old Town. Steps without much oxygen. Ragusa sits at about 1000 ft with 340 steps down to Ragusa Ibla (their old town) from Ragusa Superior. Slick and shiny marble steps, rounded on the edges.

We half-walked, half-jogged down the steps descending through the Valle dei Ponti. Vistas shifted from storefronts and bridges to Chiesa domes and walls wet with moss and vines. Nine churches in Ragusa Ibla alone. The Church of the Souls of Purgatory to the Church of Santa Maria, founded by the Knights of Malta, and tiled with Caltagirone tiles that glinted and winked their blue. Homes carved into white rock, jasmine pushing out of cracks. Chloe grabbed my arm and pulled me into a stone alcove, small windows peered into an abandoned shop, shards of glass crunched everywhere. 

“Our taco stand. We can buy it. They don’t have tacos. Great stopping point down the steps, shaded, little benches, we can serve from the windows.”   

She smiled and kept running. We often discuss where to open taco stands to create our generational wealth.

Men on stools sipped espresso in button-down shirts and lace-up loafers, newspapers in hand. A refreshing lack of ball caps and athletic shoes. The lace and shadows of ornamental wrought iron pulled us further down the steps. Women swept as if to stave off famine. Cats struck poses and lorded over the rooftops.

Bells tolled and all our grief and joy felt proper.

My HOA in Utah determined hanging laundry outside to be an eyesore, a code I ignore at my peril. Here in Ragusa, women were ratcheting open shutters to sail sheets against red tiles. Rainbows of head scarves and hijabs, black lace lingerie, button-downs and work pants, wine stains scrubbed out of crisp aprons. The white flags of handkerchiefs men still kept handy for the tears of their women, or to blow their nose.

It was hot at 11am, and my jet lag was storming. The air was dry and then wet and then thick and I could feel my temperature spike.

By the time we were on the piazza, I felt ill. 

Chloe looked at me. We spoke in unison.

“You should sit down.”

“I should sit down.” 

I sat in front of a small cafe on a wooden bench. The shopkeeper looked at me, walked inside, and returned with an ice-cold beer. He gently pressed it into my hand, and I pressed it onto my forehead, rolling it around to cool my face. We both laughed.

“I think you should drink it.” 

“It’s a little early,” I laughed.

“You’re a lot of red, and getting more red,” he stood next to me.

Chloe took the can from me and popped the tab, handing it back. 

I took a swig.

The shopkeeper left and returned with an arancini cut in fourths, a bit of gelato in a paper cup, and a hand fan.  

“Mangia, mangia, you can’t drink without eat” 

Try me. I thought.

“Why for you to Ragusa?” 

My sister died, I thought. I tended her, buried her, steadied her children, and I needed to leave. To poke at the chasm, she left while in unfamiliar territory, without reminders in every angle of light and baked good.

“My daughter lives here,” I said.

My daughter. 

Chloe is the type that can land on hot lava, kind of did, and still succeed. If she had a tinder, it would read: I like cold beer, dogs, and human remains.

Her love for human remains turned into a highly specialized field of skeletal and dental bioarcheology, tracking disease and migration through bones. It took her to UCLA for her bachelor’s, and University College London for her master’s. UCL ranks fourth in the world. She would walk the same halls as Attenborough, Ghandi, and Ricky Gervais. She would be the first graduate of higher education in our family.

On my annual visit, she met me at the train station, her coat cuff frayed, buttons missing, the sole of one of her boots flapping a bit as we walked, hair almost brushed, and her blue eyes sparkling as she talked about her studies, and if she could sneak me into the lab, would I like to hold the skull of a 900-year-old medieval British woman? Yes. Yes I would. Cradling that smooth, tiny skull, I cried. I was thinking of women, of my daughter, and what we can do with time.

With graduation imminent, my sister Joy stated she would be accompanying me to London and since we all sunburned easily, let’s tack on a heritage trip to Ireland. 

A few weeks before wheels up, she called, her voice measured.

“Gig, I have stage 4 ovarian cancer.” 

I laughed. 

Silence.

“What does that fucking mean Joy?” as if my anger could ward it off.

“It means I’m fucking dying.” Her tone was flat.

Joy did not swear.

“It means not long, Gig.” 

There’s a game that children play, or used to. It takes two. On a decent swath of lawn, face each other, cross your arms in front of you in an X and grab your partner’s hands also crossed, then start spinning in a circle as fast as you can, hanging on until you can’t and let go, or fall together on the ground, accepting grass stains and laughter. This was a primary cause of sprained wrists and dislocations. There really wasn’t a winner; it was simple endurance. Joy was letting go. 

Joy and I were two of eight children, most of us adopted. She was seven years older than I, two siblings in between us. We became the closest in our family, not in age but in shared secrets, whispered stories. She was a beauty; I was a tomboy. She attempted to pretty me up, plucking my eyebrows, detangling my waist-length red hair, shortening the hem of my Mormon knee-length skirts, desperately trying to teach me poise. She did, just in ways she didn’t expect. I taught her that dirt was fun, and play is good. We swam naked once, and I never saw her happier or more beautiful. She was my first phone call, every time.

We kept to our travel plans and watched Chloe graduate, gown a bit askew, but on. The halls of UCL reminded us of Hogwarts. We sipped champagne at the hosted reception and tried to soften our American accents. We brushed aside our collective imposter syndrome, switched to Pimms Cups, linked arms, and rubbed shoulders with intellectual royalty. 

In Ireland, we visited St. Brigid’s Well, known for miracles of healing. In its damp cave, artifacts beg and barter for a different ending. Water dripped lightly on our heads. It smelled like prayer and fear and loss. Joy crossed herself. We were all former Mormons, so crossing oneself wasn’t a thing. I rolled my eyes. She held Chloe’s hand. A Madonna wore 1000 strings of rosaries. I dropped a coin into a dark circle of water. Bartering with God and Brigid.

Back home in Utah, sitting vigil with Joy, news of a job for Chloe in Sicily came through.  

“My angels made it so!” said Joy, raising a toast of icy vodka and a hit of her CBD vape. Along with swearing, she had taken up weed and a bit of the drink on her last road. 

She died that night and pulled the stars right out of the sky. 

Six weeks in Ragusa, my body acclimated to time zones and daily scacce. I embraced the sassy flirtations of Sicilian men and iceless Negronis. I had hiked the granite steps countless times now, explored the Val di Noto and hidden crypts. I had walked home late under full moons down small alleys where bands of roving hooded teenagers hunted for the perfect Nutella crepe. I had sweated my body weight out and put holes in my shoes. The last few days, as we prepared for the drive to London, posters were plastered next to funeral notices and dance contests. A festival. Three days of a religious pilgrimage through the streets of Ragusa in homage to the dragon slayer, Saint Giorgio.

On the final night of the festival, we wandered down the steps and made it to the Basilica, sardines in a tin of people. We found a table near the front and ordered wine and artichokes in anticipation of something humble, reverent, and quiet. Ready to cross ourselves in false worship.

I was sipping wine when the cannons exploded. The table shook. A sound system blasted Italian pop music, then the tale of Saint Giorgio, The Dragon Slayer, was projected with grand imagery onto the cathedral, which appeared to be artfully melting.

The night darkened and the church stopped melting, images of a curved crucifix wrapped the cathedral and the world in its embrace. A procession of men in regalia with a relic-filled arc atop their shoulders snaked up the street. Then fireworks. Explosions screeched into the sky, spirals and bursts of sparkling ecstasy rained down on us. Mt. Etna blushed. It was daylight at 10 pm and it seemed the earth was breaking in two. Dragons were indeed slayed. We were laughing and crying, leaning into each other. “Spirit neutral”, Chloe had said when I was hoping to feel or sense the presence of our lost loved one, “Sicily is spirit neutral”. We did not know about the dragons.

The next day, we packed the car for London and took it to the local garage for a final assessment, maybe a repair if we could manage the cost. On the wall, a dusty framed Madonna perched next to a poster of a voluptuous naked brunette, cigarette dangling from her lips, leaning towards us and winking. Angelo rolled out from under the car, eyebrows furrowed, and asked us how far we planned on driving it. 

I think a lot about dubious roads. Ones I’ve taken by choice, or force, or at random. The wild and dusty roads that leave us breathless and in love, or jailed in loss. I think about the roads my daughter and I had traveled, together and apart. Of all the risks that creep out of the cracks, or are simply standing with their thumb out asking for a ride.

“London” I said. 

He sat up, crossed himself, raised his eyes to the Madonna and the brunette, pulled a hanky from his pocket, wiped sweat and tears of laughter, then blew his nose. 

Stuffing the hanky back in his pocket, “You’ll be lucky to make it to Pisa.”

We loaded the dog and headed north. 

A portion of this essay read by the author:

Ginger’s essay was selected as the 2025 Honeybee Short Creative Nonfiction Prize winner by Brenna Womer. Brenna had this to say about the piece…

“With a strong sense of new and unfamiliar place, this essay is a succinct and poignant time capsule of a shifting season in the writer’s life. While relishing in quality time spent with her ambitious, adventurous, eccentric, and accomplished daughter where she’s living for the summer in Sicily, the writer stirs with grief, loss, excitement, ambivalence, longing, love, and so many more emotions. It seems that the trip is a kind of reset for the writer, a recharging and readying of herself—body, mind, and spirit—as she launches into the next of her own life, not knowing exactly what’s to come but, by the end of the essay, seeming open to whatever the Universe has waiting in the wings. This essay, with its beautiful insights—”Bells tolled and all our grief and joy felt proper”—and compelling juxtapositions—”Rainbows of headscarves and hijabs, black lace lingerie, button-downs and work pants, wine stains scrubbed out of crisp aprons”—is smart, rich, vivid, and thoughtfully crafted. I so enjoyed the ride.”

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