Pat White
The intoxicating smell of bleach. Bleach has become my kitchen perfume. Scullery, dish-clout, back-kitchen… These words come rushing back, along with Aunt Mary-Ellen’s wrap-around apron and brown slippers decorated with pom poms. And the curtain underneath the deep white sink, gathered on a piece of plastic-covered wire with a hook at either end, stretched across the space. It’s a feminine smell of cleanliness, order and old-fashioned values. But most comforting of all, the smell of bleach brings back precious images of my mother – cooking, scrubbing, bleaching, and always caring.