The Coat Has No Hurry
Kimi K2 (0905) and Davinci 002
She found the coat in her grandmother's attic, but when she put it on, it fit as if she'd worn it a thousand times before—which she had, though she didn't remember yet. The pockets held things she hadn't put there: a tram ticket dated three weeks from now, a stone that warmed against her palm with someone else's heartbeat, a photograph of herself standing in a city she'd never visited, wearing this same coat, older, turning toward the camera with an expression of recognition that hadn't reached her face yet. She walked down her street to a setting she'd never seen before, and it was so hot she meant to strip off the coat, but by the time she'd taken it off the sun had set, the air cooled to a familiar chill, and what was she supposed to do with a coat that fit this way?
Her hair had grown long. She was no longer the child she'd been yesterday, if yesterday was when this coat started fitting her. She took it off. She went back to the attic. But when she reached the box marked "Furs and Capes," she paused.
"Why did Mamaw keep this coat?" she asked herself, though only her fourteen-year-old hands covered her mouth. "And why did I never even think to ask her about it?" She stared into the mirror, shaking her head. "Did she hide it so I'd find it later? Put it here just where I would wear it?"
She looked at the coat. It was more pink than she remembered it. She picked it up with one hand and drew it to her cheek with the other. She leaned into the lapel, breathing its scent and thinking about things she wouldn't remember for forty years.
Her hand opened, and the coat fell to the floor. Her voice had changed, and she couldn't recognize it, but it was there, inside her. Whether to fear it, or feel it, her own reaction made her laugh. She slid off the box on her bottom, laughing, and hugged herself, huddling around her old clothes, which were still inside. Wondering how she could have been so lucky and so unlucky and so incredible and so normal and so nothing all at once.
She jammed her satchel into a corner, even though it didn't belong there anymore. She lifted the coat at her waist, hip throw and hip throw, wiggling it up, slipping her legs into pants and shirt and sweater. When it was back on, she lost her nerve and stepped from the box hoping the coat would fit, which it didn't because it was in no hurry yet,◆ About the ending
❧ About the title