By Hilary Hersh
Laura turned the corner and her eyes rested on the navy blue awning of her building just down the block. That almost-home feeling was a balm for both her body and her mind. Today, the walk had been especially tedious, as her legs, exhausted from standing in the classroom all day, felt leaden, while echoes of her middle school students’ complaints were ringing in her brain. She tried to shove that memory of bedlam out of the way and replace it with an image of herself standing at the fridge pouring a glass of crisp chardonnay. Ah yes.
But as Laura reached her building, she caught her reflection in the glass door and at once felt her gut cramp into a ball. The scarf. It was gone. Her hand flew to her neck as if she could not trust her eyesight and had to touch the absence to believe it. Bare skin. Her mother’s scarf — not there?
Her eyes darted down the block to the corner where she had just turned. But all she saw were a couple of plastic grocery bags circling in the breeze like carefree children twirling just to get dizzy. She sighed deeply. “This is not happening,” she griped aloud. It had been a long week, and it was only Wednesday. Couldn’t she catch a break?
As she hastened to the corner, she recalled that during the walk home she had unzipped her jacket and loosened the scarf because of the unexpectedly warm February afternoon. The mere hint of spring had switched her thoughts from the day’s frustrations to the options she’d been considering for spring break in April, which helped distract her from the drudgery of the walk. But now she cursed herself for getting so lost in her thoughts that she let the scarf slip off along the way without noticing. “What is wrong with me!?” she exclaimed, prompting raised eyebrows from a woman walking her Maltese nearby.
But surely, Laura thought, someone would have seen a long pink scarf float off behind her like an oversized exquisite butterfly and come running to retrieve it. Or at least capture her attention so she could get it herself — as in: “Excuse me, miss, I think you dropped your scarf.” Any decent person would have done that. She herself helps people all the time — maybe even once or twice a month. She felt like crying out in frustration: “Are there no considerate people left in this world?!!” But she just gritted her teeth and moaned as she reached the corner and peered down Columbus Avenue.
Nothing. There was nothing resembling a scarf lying on the sidewalk. Laura sighed and resigned herself to the task ahead of retracing her steps down the avenue. And so she began walking, walking and walking like Dorothy on the yellow brick road — but not the part at the beginning of the movie when she is skipping along like a fool; more like the part when she’s chased by the wicked witch’s flying monkeys.
Laura was scanning the ground right and left, back and forth, till her neck began to ache from the repetitive movement. She glanced at passersby, suspecting each one of absconding with her treasure, and even made quick assessments of their bags for a bulge or a flash of pink.
A thought bounced into her head: Did she actually wear the scarf to work that day or was it yesterday? Yes, of course she had. “It was my mother’s,” she’d proudly told several people who complimented her on it. With that news, some took a closer look, noting the intricate designs of light and dark pink flowers, leaves and graceful stems. Laura’s mother had worn it so often that whenever Laura pictured her mother in her mind she always saw her with the scarf elegantly draped around her neck and shoulders. It seemed to go with everything she wore. Laura had no idea where her mother had bought the scarf or whether it had been a gift from her father or a friend. Why hadn’t she asked? Now, with her mother gone since the fall and her father having passed five years before, that bit of history was lost. Most likely, however, she had bought it herself since she had an impeccable sense of style that Laura had always admired. This morning, Laura had decided to wear it, thinking that maybe some of that style would rub off on her.
When cleaning out her parents’ apartment a few months ago, Laura found the scarf in a top dresser drawer, folded neatly with the kind of care her mother took with all her clothes and accessories. The kind of care she took with her friends. Careful with feelings. Caring to think about them, to listen to their troubles. Laura’s troubles. It was the key word Laura chose in writing the eulogy she had delivered with a trembling voice at the funeral.
Caring. Not care-Less, the way Laura had always been. The word her mother had often used in reproaching her teenaged daughter. And she had been right. Laura always seemed to be making mistakes that could have been avoided with a little more thought — like today. She scolded herself. She was 31. Would she ever learn? Was this just who she was and that would be that?
She continued intrepidly down the street, revisiting all the usual landmarks of her walk to and from school. The shops along the 81st street block, the row of benches in front of the museum, the stationery store, the bakery, the restaurants, all dissolving inexorably into the shadowy dusk that was now filling the crevices of the city. At 78th street, Laura crossed to the other side of Columbus Avenue, where she had crossed before, scrutinizing puddles, searching under nearby bushes and trees, and even squinting to venture into the eyes of bench sitters. What did they know? she thought.
She was haunted by the idea of returning home and opening the door of the closet to see the brushed nickel hook where she hung the scarf. The vision felt like grief. So she kept looking, even as the encroaching evening covered the city with a gray filter.
Finally, Laura reached the cafe where she remembered having loosened the scarf. There, she stopped and sat on a bench to gather her thoughts and her blustery emotions. She found herself wondering why she’d kept the scarf after her mother died. After all, it was just an object like the blouses, dresses, and suits Laura had so readily hauled off to Goodwill. But the scarf was different. It shielded her from forgetting. With her work, dinners out with friends, the mere passage of time, Laura was afraid that recollections of her mother would recede and disappear. Perhaps her mother would visit unexpectedly in dreams and memories lit by a random spark. But, the scarf was something real. Something her mother had touched and treasured.
Losing it was like losing her all over again. Why would she have even taken it out of her apartment?
Laura bent over, setting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She closed her eyes and breathed in the evening air. It was time to stop. Time to go home. She was hungry and tired and ready to give up and persuade herself that a thing was not worth grieving over. Opening her eyes, her first sight was her lap and knees. And then she saw it: a corner of pink material peeking out of the bottom edge of her blouse. “Whoa!” she shouted into the night. Grasping the wedge of fabric, she tugged and out streamed the scarf. It had somehow slipped underneath her blouse and had been there the whole time.
Relief flooded through Laura’s lungs and she laughed out loud. While feeling foolish, she also felt immense gratitude. Folding the scarf gently, savoring its silken warmth on her chilled fingers, she placed it in her bag and snapped the bag closed. As she walked home, she could see her mother in her mind’s eye, smiling, the scarf wrapped around her shoulders like a hug, the pink hues bringing out the pink in her blushing cheeks. And she was saying, “Thank you, darling. Thank you for taking care of me.”
* * *
Hilary Hersh is a journalist and has worked at several publications in New England and New York City. She also has worked as a teacher in several grades, most recently middle school English. She is the author of “The Vulture Investors, The Winners and Losers of the Great American Bankruptcy Feeding Frenzy.” A Vermont native, she finds inspiration for stories and poetry in the Green Mountains as well as in the teeming streets, lush parks and gleaming rivers of the city.