THE GREEN WOOLEN COAT WITH THE PETER PAN COLLAR
Mom stitched the last of the silk lining into the green woolen
Sunday coat with the Peter Pan collar. My belly vibrates along
with the Singer Sewing Machine. I will be Wendy.
My feet dangle off the folding chair in our cool, finished
wood-paneled basement with the green indoor-outdoor carpet.
We don’t have money to buy clothes. After mom inspects hems,
seams, stitching, and price tags, we leave empty-handed.
Sometimes Aunt Mary gives us fabric scraps from
the factory or mom buys by the yard at Macy’s or Sears.
She snaps the thread with her teeth, pops in the bobbin,
her face close to the sewing machine needle.
“Tell me the story when the bull chased you.” I play with a spool of thread.
She doesn’t miss a beat. “Fourth Street used to be a big grassy hill.
I wasn’t wearing red, but I heard the bull snorting, and I ran fast.
About halfway home I felt its breath on my legs.”
She holds up the coat. “There. Try this on.” I pull a thread loose
I had been chewing on, stuck between my teeth. I reach one arm at a time,
into each sleeve. “Ouch!” a drop of blood oozes from an overlooked pin.
“Sorry,” she grimaces. “Step onto the chair.”
“Mommy, the story! Keep going.” Too often she forgets, gets distracted.
She tugs the hem, pulls the sleeves, flattens the collar.
“Grandpa comes out the door with his gun. He must have heard me screaming.
As soon as he sees the bull, he runs inside pulls me behind him.
Slams the door shut.”
She sizes the coat and me, cuts threads with special sewing scissors.
“The coat looks good. Take it off so I can finish it.”
“Tell me about when your house burned down.” I fold the Butterick pattern
she never follows and stuffs it back into the envelope.
The coat looks exactly like the picture.
“A sorry day,” she says frowning and hangs the coat on a heating pipe
above our heads next to my sister’s—same color and pattern.
“It was a miracle we survived. The curtains were on fire.
Our parents couldn’t get to us. Uncle Frank was a baby, so I scooped him up.”
“Aunt Mel and Aunt Mary were screaming. Aunt Jean,
who you are too much alike, wouldn’t get out of bed.
She was dead to the world, so the three of us rolled her off the bed
and threw her out the window.”
The steam iron makes the coat smell like cooked cloth.
“She could have died. Aunt Jean was mad at us. Imagine that?
We lost everything in that fire—pictures, birth certificates, mamma’s linens,
everything.”
She holds up the coat. “Do you like it?” I hug her as far as I can reach.
She runs her fingers through my hair, gently untangling strands.
Now, much older than she was then, I feel her fingers in my hair
and the pin that pricked my skin in our damp basement.
I recall more stories she told and the sound of her voice.
I loved that coat, it was never very warm, but I could be Wendy
when I wore it. Mostly I ache when I think how much I miss her.
Bio:
Margaret R. Sáraco is the author of two poetry collections, If There Is No Wind and Even the Dog Was Quiet (Human Error Publishing). Recent publications include Meat for Tea, Paterson Literary Review, S/he Speaks, Lips, and Whisper, Whisper, Shout. Her work appears in video, Instagram, and podcast projects. She is currently completing a book of poetry and a novel.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 