The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 13

Despite her high level of intelligence, Maribeth lived a life of social disadvantages, often unable to connect herself with the events happening around her. There were a lot of puzzling things about people that Maribeth Finch couldn't comprehend, such as humor, empathy, and physical attraction. She'd seen displays of these, and several other interpersonal emotional expressions on multiple occasions. She recognized them, but they simply didn't compute. She took emotional cues from her mother, Indigo, which often caused greater confusion.

Before she was enrolled in the local public elementary school, most days Maribeth spent with Indigo in her hemp eco-friendly detergent shop, a small studio space in the basement of a laundromat located in a sketchy hole-in-the-wall neighborhood. She watched her mother concocting hemp soap, which was a heavily labor-intensive process. Indigo extracted hemp seed oil on a manual press and then mixed her products with a long wooden stirrer, taking short breaks to massage the soreness from her forearms.

As perspiration dripped from the tip of Indigo's upturned nose, Maribeth said, "Momma, when we go to the store, I see laundry detergent in great big bottles that cost twelve dollars. You're selling little itty-bitty bottles for ten dollars. Don't you think–"

Indigo's head snapped around and she glared. "I know what you're going to say so just stop it! You're brainwashed!"

Maribeth had no idea what that meant and it conjured a scary image in her mind.

Indigo wiped the sweat from her forehead. "What kind of bottles do you see at the store?"

Maribeth shrugged, intimidated by the indignation tightening her mother's voice.

"Plastic! Poison plastic bottles." She pointed to a few half-pint jars filled with an emerald green liquid. "I use all-natural glass containers. Not poison."

"But glass could break. Plastic doesn't break."

"You're really bumming me out. You sound just like the man."

"Oh, geez. What man?" The foot tapping began.

"The man. You know? The oppressors. The ones running the machine!"

"What machine? And is there more than one man?"

"They want you to think that there's only one way to do things. Their way! They don't want us to be individuals. They want us to be sheep that they can control."

"How do you control sheep? You mean with dogs?"

Indigo leaned back against the bench and sighed.

"Why would sheep buy laundry detergent?" Maribeth asked. "They don't even wear clothes."

"You wouldn't get so hung up if you stopped taking everything so literally!"

Had Indigo been more fully engaged with her daughter's upbringing, she would have known that Maribeth took everything literally. It was the only way she could make sense of her world, interpreting with the brain she was born with. It wasn't as though she had a choice. That's the way Maribeth was wired. To add to her long list of anxieties, this whole thing about having her brainwashed was tremendously worrisome.

"Listen to me, Maribeth. Try to pay attention. Do you think those people who make those laundry detergents care about the earth or their customers? No, they don't. They only care about making money. Do they care that they're killing the earth by filling it up with their ugly plastic bottles? Not one bit. Do they care about their customers' health? They surely do not.  They're down for some bad, bad karma."

Indigo knew her temper had broken out of its cage. She closed her eyes, drew a deep meditative breath, and released it through her nose. "Listen to me. People are scared of what they don't know, what they don't understand. If you're smart, you never need to be afraid."

Maribeth pondered that aphorism.

Indigo pushed her sleeve up her forearm. "Look at this skin. It's like silk and there's not a blemish on it. Your skin is healthy too because we wash ourselves and our clothes with all-natural hemp soap. What kind of mother would I be if I poisoned my own daughter with poison soap produced by some giant faceless corporation?"

"What kind of mother would I be?" That stuck in Maribeth's mind. There must be many kinds of mothers and apparently, some of them were poisoning their own daughters! Maribeth could scarcely process that horrible concept. And if that wasn't scary enough, her mom said something about a faceless giant! Maribeth wished she had never mentioned the laundry detergent at the store. Had she known that it would lead to her mother's terrifying talk about brainwashing, machines that wanted people to be sheep and faceless giants, she would have gladly kept her mouth shut.

She sat criss-cross applesauce against the wall on the worn blue shag rug and took refuge behind the book she'd been reading, 'Grant the Friendly Hippo,' tuning out her mother.

"You'll understand someday," Indigo said before returning to her work. Then she added ruefully, "Hopefully."