Two Brown Coats on the Sled Hill

Fleet Farm, again

Monday after work I drove back to Mankato. It was already dark at five. The wind came across the cut cornfields along the highway and pushed at the car the whole way.

I found the same coat on the same rack. Same brown. Same corduroy collar. Kids’ medium, the one Cole had grown into.

I took it off the hanger, and then I stood there in the aisle for a long time with it over my arm.

A woman with a cart full of deer corn and salt blocks asked me if I was finding everything okay. I said yes, I was. I was not sure that was true.

Then I went down the rack to the boys’ large and took that one down too.

I did not do the math. I want to be honest about that. I knew it was another $140, and I knew it was coming out of the Christmas money, and I made myself not think about it until I was in the car.

At the register, the girl folded them both and said, “Twins?”

“Something like that,” I said.

At home I put Cole’s on the hook by our back door, where he could see it in the morning. I folded the big one on the kitchen table and sat down in front of it.

I took an index card out of the junk drawer, the kind I use for grocery lists. I sat there with a pen for a good twenty minutes.

I wrote three different notes. The first one was a paragraph about respect, and I tore it up. The second one was one line about how a coat costs money, and I tore that up too.

The third one said two words. Stay warm.

I did not sign it. I did not write his name or hers. I just slid it into the front chest pocket of the big coat and folded the flap down over it.

Cole sees it

Cole found his new coat on Tuesday morning, and he stood in front of the hook for a while before he said anything.

“Is this the same one?”

“Same one,” I said. “Brand new.”

He put it on and zipped it up to his chin and looked at me over the collar. Then he saw the second coat on the table, still folded, with the price tag hanging off the sleeve.

“Who’s that for?”

I could have said it was for nobody. I could have hidden it in the closet. But I have tried hard not to lie to my son, even about small things.

“That one’s for Kaden,” I said.

He did not say anything for a second. I braced for him to be mad, because he had every right to be. It was his coat that was taken. It was him who walked home cold.

Then he said, very quietly, “Good. He was cold, Mom. On the bus. He’s always cold.”

I had to turn around and pour coffee I did not want, because I did not want my son to see my face just then.

“Can I give it to him?”

“No, bud,” I said. “I’ll do that part. You just be you.”