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“What are we doing here? Other than breathing in toxic fumes, probably,” Louise asked with extreme skepticism as she and Mom stood at the entry to the dump. Piles of trash were--obviously--everywhere. Mom looked excited which did not instill a lot of confidence in the little girl. Too often Mom being excited led to boring theater productions or humiliating seminars.
“Here.” Mom pulled a hammer from the backpack that she wore and handed it to Louise.
“A hammer?” Louise grinned and hefted the tool from one hand to the other, feeling its weight. The handle was the exact same shade of pink as her bunny ears. “Thanks, but what am I supposed to do with a hammer at the dump?”
Mom smiled widely back at Louise and produced another hammer from the backpack. Hers had a red handle and Mom held the tool high like it was made for her grip.
“Come on!” Mom picked her way over piles of broken electronics and old clothes. Louise followed carefully behind and watched closely as Mom looked around, clearly trying to find something specific. Louise was itching to break stuff, but she held back even as she kicked cans and rocks out of her way with more force than necessary. Mom had just handed her a hammer! That was worth at least five minutes of good behavior.
“Alright!” Mom exclaimed just as Louise’s internal clock told her that it was smashing time. “Over there! Look, look, look!”
Louise's gaze followed Mom’s insistent pointer finger. Some yards away was a pile of furniture with one article taking center stage. That article sparkled due to the webbing of cracks in its surface. “What? It’s just a broken mirror.”
Mom’s grin grew manic. “Watch this!” To Louise’s utter shock, Mom hurled her hammer at the mirror with the full force of a mother-strong arm. The glass shattered outward in a beautiful spray that caught the light like a suncatcher.
“Now you do it! Go, go, go!”
“Mom!” Louise squealed–actually squealed, may the stars above save her–and jumped up and down in glee. “I can hurl this hammer–this hammer, right here in my eager little paw–and destroy stuff?”
Mom bent down and put a hand on Louise’s shoulder. She looked Louise in the eye, her red glasses like a superhero’s mask. Mom spoke two words–just two:
“Smashy-smashy.”
—-
When they were done, Louise was exhausted and sweaty. She had dirt and probably shards of glass all over her dress. There were blisters on both of her hands and a cut on her knee where she’d stumbled in her haste to get to a particularly appealing roll-top desk to destroy.
Mom was in similar shape. Her glasses were askew and she’d ripped her shirt on a broken bicycle. Mom also definitely had shards of glass on her pants as she’d gone to further obliterate her mirror with an obsession that Louise only saw from her mother when the woman was trying to drag her family on cursed excursions.
Everything was awesome.
“So, how do you feel?” Mom asked as they used rotting cardboard and other large pieces of trash to brush off the worst of the debris from their clothes.
Louise answered immediately. “I feel great! Why don’t more people do this?”
“Not everyone has a cool mom like you,” Mom replied, giving up on her pants at last. She held out a hand to Louise who scooped up Lady Shatter-teeth, gave the hammer a tender kiss on the head, and relinquished control of her new favorite toy. Mom stowed both hammers in the backpack as they began to walk back to the car.
“Is this something you do? How did I not know?” Louise asked with awe in her voice. “Teach me your ways, Sensei!”
Mom laughed loudly. “Nah, I came up with this after my Louise-y Peasy Over Easy came home all mopey because the other kids didn’t like her ideas of fun.”
Louise’s good mood soured just a bit. It still stung a little that none of the other kids–not even Tina or Gene–like breaking stuff. But who cared? Mom loved breaking stuff!
“So I thought to myself, ‘What can I do for my little He-Woman?’ Hammers are cheap, especially when you know a handyman with discounts at every hardware store in town,” Mom continued while they got into the car and buckled up. Louise felt prickles all along her legs from the glass; she'd definitely need a bath tonight.
“Can we do this again? Soon? Like, tomorrow?” Louise asked, rapid-fire. She had already picked out her next target: there was a giant disco ball from the Wiggle Room just waiting for Louise’s loving destruction.
“No way, Missy!” Mom wagged a finger at Louise as they started off towards their shabby seaside town and their (less-fun) family. “This is a treat, for when you’re especially good or especially sad. It’ll be our little secret.”
Louise smirked. “Dad doesn’t know, does he?”
Mom glanced over at Louise with a matching smirk. “You think your father would want us smashing stuff at the dump? Of course he doesn’t know.”
Louise lightly lay her head on Mom’s shoulder. Lady Shatter-teeth sat in the backpack at Louise’s feet, along with The Lady in Red Rubber. Both Belcher women were covered in God-only-knew-what. How, exactly, they were going to get into the apartment and clean without anyone seeing was a complete mystery to Louise.
Louise had probably never felt so calm.
“I love you, Mom."