The bitterness that flooded your throat, the slimy texture, like an oyster, slippery and wet, the urge to gag that started in your stomach and crawled up your throat, each gut twisting heave meant to disgorge the offensive word or phrase or sass that passed through your mouth and into your mother’s ear.

You remember the Sweet-Heart soap shaped like an ellipse that fit so easily through your lips, like a fish swimming downstream. How, as a child, you wrapped the bar in fishnet made of nylon, let the excess fabric fan out like a bony tail; how you covered it with beads and sequins that blinked as you glued them on to form an eye or a gill.  You handed it to your mother as an offering, a penance. You swore the fish looked straight through you with those glassy beady eyes.  As if she saw your future self.

You recall the texture of the soap, how your mother insisted that you bite it, clench it between your teeth. How you stood in front of the mirror, your reflection an abstract study of tears and spit and tongue; the sound of your mother’s foot tapping like a drumbeat or a raindrop or the sound of your tinny heart. How she reached out to calm you; how you pulled away.

You hear the echo of your mother’s disappointments; in you, in herself, in her life. In her questions about who you’ve become, and what you believe. You stretch and push beyond the confines of her rules, in your clothes, in your friends, in your truths. The taste of soap replaced by the bite of rebellion and the scent of free will. You relish the power in withholding your love, in the sting of your words, the lash of your tongue; how you called her a witch, a nag, unwanted; how you watched her recoil. You see it in a photo of your mother with her arm around your waist, pulling the adult you towards her; you at a tilt, arms folded, mouth tight. Her reaching out, you holding back.

 You recognize the backwash of remorse. It slips and slides through your memory like an opaque film, bubbling up when least expected.  You hear it in the thud of dirt thrown on her coffin at her funeral; handfuls of sorry for words that you said and affection you spurned.

You touch the passage of time as you reach into her dresser, feel the linen and the cotton and the silk. Beneath the panties and the bras, under the nighties and the stockings is the waxy feel of old soap, yellowed and cracked beneath torn netting, beads for eyes staring out. You hold it gently in your hands; see the pin pricks of time on its surface, smell staleness and regret in its scent. You place it in your mouth. You bite down hard; gag on the chalky flakes crumbling down.