By Jennifer Murray Cosgrove

After Paul’s mother had a heart attack, she asked him to go to the house to feed her cat and bring some of her clothes. She limply pulled on the bottom of his shirt and whispered loudly behind the oxygen mask. “Bring two nightgowns, the blue floral and the green ivy. And my robe.” Her face flushed the same hot pink as the plastic flamingos on her front porch. He tensed, waiting for the monitors to sound an alarm. “And bring my unmentionables.”  

“Wh-“

The nurse pulled him aside. “She wants you to bring her underwear. Better bring six or seven.” 

“And my lilac lotion and toiletries.” 

Paul nodded, bent down to give her a gentle hug, held her hand a moment longer while she attempted to squeeze him. 

At the house, he poured cat food in the dish and let the cat sniff him though he had made up his mind long ago he was not a cat person. The cat pressed its body into his hand, forcing Paul to pet it. When the cat left him to curl up on the couch, Paul found a tote bag and began to fill it up with her lotions, a hairbrush, and a toothbrush before turning toward her bedroom. He realized the last time he came in here, he was just a boy sneaking his dad’s cigarettes from the sock drawer. 

As he crossed the threshold, he slipped back in time. The same blue bedspread with tiny flowers. The same gold framed photos. His parents’ wedding. His fat, toothless smile as a baby. The one family photo taken when he was four and his mother still dressed him. There he was sitting between his parents in that awful sailor’s outfit with short pants while his mother beamed in a floral dress and his father’s grim smile contrasted with the sunny yellow Oxford shirt muted just slightly by the navy blazer.  Adorable, his mother always said of the photo, pointing out his fat cheeks.  

Paul stepped over to the headboard and, as he had done as a boy, moved that family portrait behind the wedding photo. The unpleasant thought crossed his mind that someday he would inherit that photo. He moved it back.

Paul went to his mother’s closet and opened the door to grab the robe. He stepped back and covered his mouth. The closet was organized neatly. His mother’s things were on one side, and his father’s things on the other. His navy blazer from the family photo, his white and pale blue dress shirts still crisp, and the well-worn flannel shirts with muted blues, greens, and reds. He pushed aside the yellow turtleneck his father wore exactly once, because Paul’s mother bought it as a gift. Paul and his father secretly hated the sunny color.

Paul leaned in, letting his hand touch the faded blue flannel he most associated with his dad. As his hands moved across the clothes, Paul smelled the scent of freshly laundered shirts. His father died twenty years ago.

Paul had not cried when his father was diagnosed with cancer nor when he died nor at the funeral. Paul had not cried when his wife filed for divorce and told him she never really loved him. Paul didn’t even cry when he got the call to meet his mother at the hospital or when he saw her body looking so frail, trapped by all the hospital contraptions. 

Paul pulled the blue flannel from the hanger.  Collapsing onto the bed, he pressed his face to the soft material and felt a warmth on his shoulder, the size of a man’s hand, as his body convulsed with emotion.

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Jennifer Murray Cosgrove has worked in education and social services. She enjoys traveling and going to school, apparently, since she has way too many degrees. She loves when characters take possession of her writing.