My old Navy pea coat was something I wasn't going to give away. It had been my grandfather's coat; I wore it in college and it was the only memento I had of him. I may never have met him, but it was the only connection I had with that part of my family.
The sweater my dad used to wear in the fall when he'd work on the yard. There were times when I'd fight with Grady and I'd want the comfort of being with my dad even though we were several hundred miles away and never knew what to say to each other on the phone.
The apron my mom used to where it when she made dinner when I was a kid, I had hidden away in a drawer when she left; my dad threw everything else out. It had been in the laundry the day before she went. We had made my favorite dinner: spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. Dessert had been a batch of brownies from a box. When I looked at it, it truly was ugly. Covered in frogs, lily pads, and brownie batter stains. Several times over the years, I had put it in a box for charity and my dad always fished it out. He told me someday I'd want a good memory of her. He was right, especially since when she left, she never even looked out the rear view mirror and we never heard from her again.
Despite what Vic thought, I kept all of my coveralls, overalls, tacs, and work dungarees. Used? Yes. Ugly? You bet. Comfortable? Depended on what I weighed and the chore involved.
My collection of Silver Fox Construction and Renovation t-shirts all went back to the closet. I wasn't sure if I'd be working for my dad, but he made me buy the shirts myself, just like the guys. If I was going to do anything, even answer the office phone, I had to look like I belonged to the crew.
"Bernie, you don't do that kind of work," he said.
"Obviously you've never cleaned out the gutters, hung Christmas lights, or painted a wall." My list could have gotten a lot longer, but we both knew that the only exercise Vic got was when he was at the gym. He and Chris lived in a high rise apartment building and there was no need to do maintenance of any kind. The one time I took him to Home Depot you would have thought he was going to a foreign country and didn't speak the language.
He kept pointing at things and ask, "Bernie, what's that for?"
I may never have had a child of my own, but that day I could understand why some parents barely survive having toddlers.
The now overly ugly prom dresses I had from high school could go into a storage bag, but a part of me wanted to keep them in case I ever had a daughter and she wanted to play dress up. My grandmother used to haunt thrift stores for fancy dresses when I was a kid, they made great costumes.
All of my should have been sexy shoes went in the bag for charity. I tried to wear them but could never really catch my balance and I always felt like a fool when I did put them on. someone else could use them and pretend to be Cinderella or the Pretty Woman. Ballerina flats were just fine for me, unless I wound up dating an NBA player and then he could learn to stoop to talk to me. If I was given my druthers, I'd rather wear tennis shoes, Doc Martin's, or my steel toed work boots, they fit the same parameters as the coveralls, but they were comfortable and durable. The biggest plus to work boots? I never twisted my ankle trying to walk in them.
Several pairs of jeans in good repair that had never quite fit right were definitely in the donate pile. I would have put the two pairs of yoga pants in the pile, too, but Vic kept insisting on working out with me. When I forgave him in a couple of days, we might do it. Maybe.
The wedding dress and the broken promises I made to myself? It was high time to let those go, too. I put it on Craigslist: Wedding dress never worn. Slightly rumpled. Size 6. I didn't list a price because I wasn't even sure how much it would be worth now.
I fished the business card out of my pocket and inquired about donating the clothes. I had to drop them at a center that would process them, unless I was being battered there was no reason for me to have their address. It was one of the few ways they were able to maintain the safety and privacy of their clients.
The stack of garbage bags in the living room filled almost half of the floor space. My only hope was that some women would be able to benefit from them as they started their new lives.
I wandered the rooms of the bungalow and sighed. Every night I'd done a little something to the place. One night I steamed off the ugly wall paper in the foyer. Another I did it in the bathroom. I stripped the old paint off the kitchen cabinets and discovered a beautiful mellow oak beneath all of the layers of thick, white paint. I wanted to do the carpet and see if I had hard wood floors beneath the ugly beige nightmare, but if I didn't, I wouldn't have the money to recarpet the house and the rooms would be too big to buy remnants.
It felt like home and I had really begun to love it. The sounds of the rain on the tin roof. The way the furnace groaned to life in the middle of the night. I loved the old crankcase windows that got stuck if I turned the handle too hard. I even liked the deatatched(sp) one car garage with the manual door.
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tbc
word count 1085
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