I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked again at the evidence before me. I always knew Momma was good for keeping secrets, and I figure I got the trait from her. I could keep this one — at least until someone went through my belongings after my death.

      My earliest memories of Momma was of the piles of coins she poured from her pockets when she came home from waitressing tables at Denton’s Diner. The silver was stacked and rolled in the paper sleeves to take to the bank, the dollars were flattened and sealed in a deposit envelope, but the pennies were ours, the kids, to split. Later she only got bills, and the tip-sharing was replaced by an allowance.

      The three of us, Jillie didn’t happen along for a number of years, would solemnly count out milk money for the coming week and hope for a few extra cents to spend at Howell’s – the mom and pop store a couple blocks away. Momma occasionally would give us each a nickel or dime extra for doing our chores on time – but really for the joy of watching us dream of the mounds of goodies we then could afford.

      I remember counting out pennies for candy and Popsicles – in those days a nickel bought ten pieces of candy or a Popsicle and a dime was untold wealth.

      Coke came in that famous Marilyn Monroe figured bottle and cost a dime. We would drink the "pop" while sitting on the front steps, listening to the men talk politics and weather while they played gin. The deposit on the return would get us enough for two pieces of Double Bubble each and we’d walk home blowing double piece bubbles.

      Lo-Joe (named after a Army buddy of our father) was four years older and could be counted on to burst my successes before I could challenge the size she reached. Larry hoarded his cash to buy Tops gum for the baseball cards inside, or Cracker Jacks for the awesome toy. We girls spent it as we got it.

      Momma was always the prettiest mother at any school function. Being the prettiest never brought her much in the way of girlfriends. Married women drew their husbands away, and single women didn’t need the competition for the bachelors. She demanded and got good grades, behavior, and attendance from us. Lo-Joe had skipped a grade, and so had I, but poor Larry didn’t inherited the get-ahead gene. He got strange-luck instead. He’d get beaten up for his ice-cream money, but find a quarter in the ditch where the bullies left him. That kind of thing lasted his whole life, and worried Momma.

      My daddy had died a month or so before I was born. The doctor, at my grandparents’ request, gave my Momma (and me, I suppose) some powerful tranquilizers to keep her from jumping off the nearest railroad bridge like Billy Jo McAllister.

      Twenty-two, widowed with two small kids. No diploma or work experience to use to find a decent job. Gram and Pops wanted to take us kids to live with them, but the offer didn’t extend to Momma. Only her determination kept us together.

      Waitressing answered the need. Momma’s teenage sister moved in with us and more or less – mostly less – watched Lo-Joe and me. When I was four, Momma started dating a fella from her bowling league, and that’s where Larry came in. Merv married Momma but turned out to be a head case and spent all her savings and talked to people who no one else saw. His mother knew he was nuts, but blamed his problems on marrying my momma. Momma worked two or three jobs to pay off his debts.

      After a while, Merv was shipped off to the little white farm, and Momma got an annulment. Larry was two and another of Momma’s sisters moved in so she could keep working.

      Momma had lots of dates. The third date was always for dinner and included us kids. There was almost never a fourth date – not because we misbehaved, but because – I think – men realized what a package of history came with Momma’s to-die-for legs.

      Uncle Jerry came into our lives when I was twelve. He was a handsome (I’d begun to notice those things) man who looked like Tyrone Powers. He owned the Turnip Town Inn. He would introduce my mother as his head waitress then always say, “Don’t bother looking, her knees aren’t dirty.” He’d wait for the other man to laugh – it was always men he introduced her to. I never understood that joke until years later.

      Jerry stayed with Momma ten years, I think. He took us on nice vacations, and could make my mom laugh. There was only one problem…

      I remember sitting watching TV one time, a couple of months into their relationship, when he came into the house. Momma was out to the grocery store, and he joined me in the living room.

      He made small talk for a while. He wasn’t a stupid man; he knew by my monosyllabic answers I didn’t like him, and he came right out and asked me why.

      “Your son is in my math class,” I said. “Besides sex, why do you step out on your wife?” I was awfully precocious, for those days, in my knowledge about male/female interactions. I had recently found their stash of porn magazines and had read a dog-eared copy of ‘The Devil in Miss Jones’.

      Jerry looked uncomfortable and stayed quiet a long time. Finally, he sighed. “Your Momma’s a looker,” he said, red-eared, not even glancing in my direction. “But more than that, she has a way of making me feel like I can own the world.”

      I nodded. Hadn’t Momma convinced me that I could become anything I wanted?

      “If you turn out to be half the woman she is, your husband will be a lucky man.” He rubbed one hand through his hair, a troubled look on his face. He certainly hadn’t discussed his sex life with his teen-age daughter and, to his credit, was trying to be honest and forthright with me, but probably worried he’d said too much.

      “I’m never getting married,” I declared with absolute certainty.

      He started laughing.

      “What’s so funny?” I asked as I jumped to my feet to stomp away.

      “You’ll get married, Lindy-Jane,” he said, getting his composure back a little. “You are too much like your Momma to live alone and too much of a bitch to live in sin.”

      A couple years later an oops named Jill Leigh was born. Jerry divorced his homely wife, but didn’t marry Momma. He went on to run for County Commissioner, and then moved up to state politics. Poor Jillie – she never knew her Daddy, or even had an Uncle Jerry.

      I never did forgive him for calling me a bitch – but he was right. I did marry.

      Momma died last summer. She stayed young until Larry was killed in a stupid motorcycle accident. Lo-Joe got the house, I kept half the money Momma had in stocks, and gave the other half to Jill and her Air Force husband.

      All I wanted from the house was the big old trunk where Momma stored her keepsakes. My husband put it in the basement, predicting I would never get around to sorting through. He was probably right but, when I nearly died from ‘female troubles’, I was desperate for diversions during my recuperation and had him haul it up to the spare bedroom.

      So there I sat, surrounded by my Momma’s treasures. I always knew she could keep a secret, but I had no clue of the magnitude of her covert life.

      I picked up the Polaroid. My Momma – the looker – in a sequined two-piece outfit, standing on a stage and posing with one hand on her cocked hip and the other in her rich dark hair. She resembled Natalie Woods or a grown-up Judy Garland. She was beautiful.

      I picked up the glossy brochure and turned to the featured dancer’s photo. Candy Cotton was her name, but I knew her better as Momma.

      I started laughing again, feeling the astonished tears spring anew. No wonder the women were so intimidated. How could they compete with a stripper named Candy? I wonder how many men had been made to feel as if they owned the world as she performed in their fantasies? All I know for certain is how well she sheltered us from the truth. She kept food on the table and a roof over our heads, using nothing but her wits and pretty legs. I felt nothing but pride and delight.

      She envisioned a future for us and made it appear.

      My Momma was a looker, all right.

Woman, wife, worker, writer. We all wear many faces and fill our niches as best we can.       Lisa edits for the fledgling online science-fiction magazine, Distant Worlds, moderates a writers’ group in her hometown of Lancaster, PN, and is a member of AUWG, a fan-fiction group with a substantial internet presence. Lisa's Jolie Howard Fiction website features her short stories and novels.