The Clothes My Parents Wore

Pastor Sorenson met us at the door after the service. He is an old man, Pastor Sorenson, with hands like a farmer because he keeps bees and a garden, and he took my mother’s hand in both of his and then he took mine, and he looked at me with so much tenderness that I felt accused by it, and he said, “Nora. We are all so proud of you. Your folks did a hard, beautiful thing, and I hope you know it.”

I said, “Know what?”

And something flickered across his face, a quick worry, because he saw in one second that I did not know, that I had no idea what he was talking about, and he glanced at my parents halfway across the churchyard, and he made a decision. He put his hand on my shoulder and he walked me a few steps away toward the cemetery fence, and he told me a little of it. Not all of it. He is a discreet man. But he told me enough to turn the dread into something worse and better at the same time.

He said, “When your tuition bill came due in August, and the aid did not cover what everyone thought it would cover, your father came to see me. He did not want help from the church. He is too proud for that and I did not push it, that is between a man and God. But he asked me one thing. He asked if the Lord minded a man selling what he owned so his girl could have a thing he never had. And I told him the Lord sold heaven itself for us, so no, I did not expect the Lord minded.”

I did not fully understand even then. But I understood enough to feel sick, and Pastor Sorenson saw it, and he patted my shoulder and said, “Go easy on yourself. You were not supposed to know. That was the whole idea.” And he would not say another word about it.

The next piece came from Glenda.

Glenda Ruff runs the resale shop in Corliss, the consignment place in the old hardware store on Main, where everybody in three counties takes the things they cannot use and buys the things they can. I went in Monday because my mother sent me for a zipper, and Glenda, who has known me since I was in a car seat, came around the counter and hugged me and told me how proud she was, that word again, and then she said the thing that finally made me understand.