My family sells lingerie.

Negligees, bras, panties, thongs, bustiers, pajamas, nightgowns, and robes.

My grandma, who is in her eighties, started Lace, Satin, and Baubles when she was sixteen. She said she arrived from Ireland after sliding off the curve of a rainbow with a dancing leprechaun and flew to America on the back of an owl.

I thought that was a magical story when I was younger. When I was older I found out that she had crisscross scars from repeated whippings on her back, so the rainbow, dancing leprechaun, and flying owl part definitely dimmed.

Grandma refuses to talk about the whippings, her childhood, or her family in Ireland. “It’s over. No use whining over it. Who likes a whiner? Not me. Everyone has the crap knocked out of them in life, why blab about it? Blah blah blah. Get me a cigar, will you? No, not that one. Get one from Cuba. Red box.”

What I do know is that by the time Regan O’Rourke was sixteen she was out on her own. It was summer and she picked strawberries for money here in Oregon and unofficially started her company.

The woman who owned the farm had an obsession with collecting fabrics but never sewed. In exchange for two nightgowns, she gave Grandma stacks of fabric, lace, satin, and huge jam bottles full of buttons.

Grandma worked at night in her room in a weathered boarding house until the early hours and sold her nightgowns door to door so she would have money for rent and food.

Lace, Satin, and Baubles was born. Our symbol is the strawberry.

My grandma still works at the company. So do my sisters, Lacey and Tory. I am back at home in Portland after years away working as a documentary filmmaker and more than a year of wandering.
You could ask me where I wandered. I would tell you, “I took a skip and a dance into hell.”

It would be appropriate to say I spent the time metaphorically screaming.