Muriel’s Closet
By: Nancy Adams
Tags: Buffalo, Mothers, Homelessness, Shopping, Department Store

I sit by the fire, smoke actually, as the results of my little conflagration fill the interior of the fireplace. The water is spouting over the coffee grounds in the coffee maker. Judge is checking and rechecking the path of his kibble ball in the hope that he missed a morsel. I am chasing a memory.

On Thursday last week the local place that offers lunches and dinners to homeless people, and counsel and clothes and furniture, and a place to take clothes and furniture, opened up something they called ‘Muriel’s Closet.’ I went to the opening, for Muriel was my mother and she had volunteered there for many years. I loved it. I especially loved it for I come from a land where you have to pay for your name on something, a hospital wing, or a football stadium, or a school dorm. Mom’s name went on this place for free, as it were, if you didn’t monetize the volunteer hours she put in for those long years. There in that Muriel’s Closet is clothing and fine jewelry, and china and books and linens and all sorts of things, all arranged with loving hands.

Living in the house where she lived, Muriel’s closet is my closet now, to be precise. Actually both of Muriel’s closets are my closets. The spaces themselves are not normal. The closets off Mom and Dad’s bedroom, now ours, are on both sides of the bedroom entrance. The walls are rounded. Only the areas that hold the doors are straight. The interior of the closets have pie shaped shelves. The closet on the left was Dad’s, now Merv’s. The one on the right was Mom’s — Muriel’s.

We weren’t forbidden precisely to go into Mom’s closet. In later years, as we made our own beds, the closet was the go to place for sheets and pillowcases, piled neatly on the pie shaped shelves. Mom’s clothes hung from an old wood rod. I don’t remember her every day clothes from early years. Mom had some dresses she had made, fitted bodices and full skirts, that went out on occasion. Later, some fine wool darted and inset and edge stitched ensembles joined the simpler clothes, still made at home on Mom’s machine. Heels, elegant heels, sat on the floor, waiting for their chance. Mom’s coat, a fur, was a broad shouldered shortened holdout from World War II. We still have it, with a new lining (only 50 years old or so) that Mom inserted, when the old one was too frayed to wear any longer. A fur with a ragged lining doesn’t make a fashion statement, I guess.

Dad’s early years as a country lawyer didn’t amount to much in the matter of money, though the stories that come from those days are treasures. Pretty soon, though, his practice took off, as “Justice prevailed,” he commented on returning from a successful court trial. Justice prevailed more and more, and our cash poor family became a comfortably well off family. First there was no car and hitchhiking to the county seat for the trials. Then a car became two cars. A little apartment at the edge of town got changed up for a little house and then the Tall House, as some grandchildren call it now. The contents of Mom’s closet changed too.

The effects of money got plastered on my teeth. I got the first braces in school. I state emphatically that it was an unenviable accessory. There was one good thing about the braces, though, and that was the location of the orthodontist, in downtown Buffalo, home of fine department stores. Orthodontist day began like any other school day, but I knew that by third period I would be dismissed, to meet my mother, to get in her car, to drive the hour to Buffalo, to see the orthodontist, and then…and then…and then…

AM&A’s, Hengerers, and Bergers were the one’s on Mom’s list. AM&A’s had an escalator, Berger’s had an elevator with an attendant. AM&A’s had a lunch room. Bergers had deep rugs and salons and long cabinets filled with sheer silk stockings and fine undergarments. Hengerers had bolts and bolts of imported fabric, cottons and laces and wools. Just me and Mom, no father, no sisters. Something that I needed on my mother’s list for me, Mom in charge of site and quality and route. Berger’s had the coats. AM&A’s had the shoes. They might both have had both. They probably did.

To get a coat at Berger’s was a fine thing. The store was hushed and elegant. There were no sales, no elbows, no arguments, no crying children and candy. There were elegant women in suits, and equally elegant women behind counters. Perhaps the Queen of England shopped there. Perhaps she walked confidently, as Mom did, to the elevator, and the elevator attendant turned to her for direction. Perhaps the Queen, in a decisive voice, said “Misses’ Coats, please.” That is what my Mother did, at any rate. The Elevator attendant, on her little seat, closed the big doors and the grilles, and pushed the button that took us to the 5th floor. Perhaps they waited on the queen as they waited on Mom, for her description of the desired coat. Wool, warm, buttoned, fitted. Perhaps they searched and carried one, two, three coats to the salon area for the queen, draped over their arms, and then hung, carefully, on brass hooks. Perhaps they helped the Queen off with her jacket and sweater. They certainly did for Mom, and for me, the proposed recipient of a wool fitted, buttoned coat. I slipped one arm, and then the other, into the silky lined loden green coat. The sales woman and Mom checked the shoulders with their hands, smoothing the line to the sleeve, noticing the careful setting in, the smooth seams, the curl of the collar. I walked regally to the mirror, but it was Mom and the sales woman who examined the height of the hem. Mom and the sales woman nodded. I did not disagree. How could I, confronted with royalty? And my first dress coat?

AM&A’s for lunch. Oh there were lunch places at street level where anyone could go in, glass all steamed from the frigid air outside and the moist air inside, patrons all flinching as someone new walked into the door letting in the Arctic blast of cold. Coats and hats everywhere. Harried wait staff. AM&A’s dining room was on a high floor. It was cheerful and quiet and warm and free of drafts. The tables were far apart and coats draped over chairs tripped no one up. Coffee in a cup on a saucer got poured for Mom. Milk in a tall glass got poured for me. Menus, with nothing crossed off, no price changes to fill us with regret that we had not gotten the tuna fish sandwich while it was still 99 cents. We ordered creamed chicken on toast. Some fruit salad just tart enough, to crisp up the flavors of the chicken and the sauce. And ice cream for me. Cake for Mom.

Mom’s Closet, I am happy to say, will provide such a place for its customers. For there is a place for little princes and princesses to play on the floor and read books. And mirrors to try on jewelry, or to raise up a crystal glass to see its color. A coffee corner, for the chance to drink and ponder the decision. Volunteers and staff who want to see people battered and bullied by life treated like queens and princes, for once. Prices set just right to bring dignity and possibility to the exchange of money for items. Mom would love it. She would check a coat’s shoulders or lining and then nod or shake her head and the buyer would leave, confident in the purchase, the quality, the fit, the color.

Merv is down. The fire is caught, more flame than smoke now. The coffee is disappearing. Time for a fresh cup. Good morning. Happy shopping!