Note: This is a story taken from my book: "If You Only Knew…!"...I have adapted it for use on my website. The two sisters in this story are my youngest sister and myself. Three other sisters and a brother made up the family as it was in 1951.

The sisters sat with the photograph album spread across their knees, giggling like a couple of schoolgirls at the old black-and-white snapshots of themselves and their siblings. They had a lot of catching up to do. It had been eighteen years since they had seen each other, but as they sat sharing memories of their girlhood days, the years melted away.

"Look at me there," Pauline snickered, sliding her fingers across the page of snaps. She let out a gasp as her gaze fell on the next picture. "I ... I remember that coat," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I was thirteen. And it was—" She swiped at a tear at the corner of her eye . . . And she was living that memory of 1951 again.

It was late October. Jessie glanced out the window at the early winter storm. "You need a winter coat," she said, watching her youngest daughter grab her summer coat and sling it over her shoulders. "You'll freeze in that one. After school we'll hop the bus and go look for a suitable coat for you."

Jessie had always made her girls' clothes. The usual procedure was to open the catalogue--Eaton's or Simpson's--and have the girls pick the model of garment they wanted. She then would buy the appropriate material and create a replica of the garment each had chosen, always, to their delight. But her cancer had left her weak. It didn't take a person with even her nursing knowledge to know it was advancing, despite two radical mastectomies, both within nine months. So, she felt that it would be easier to buy her daughter a coat this time.

"Oh Mom! This one." Pauline took her mother's hand, leading her to a mint green coat with a plaid-lined hood. She put it on, mincing toward the store mirror. Her first store-bought coat! She was ecstatic. "It's just per—fect!" She tossed her head and strutted back toward her mother. With one knee slightly bent, her left hand poised with the little finger stretched out, she raised her right arm gracefully above her head in a curved position, imitating the mannequin in the display window.

Jessie smiled. How she would love to indulge her, to buy this coat for her. She sized her daughter up and down, pursing her lips and puckering her brow. She opened her purse, rustling around in it for her wallet, checking her cash again. "Take it off," she said suddenly. "It's not for you." She began to walk away.

"But Mom!"

"Take it off." She waved her hand. "The color's not right. You'd have it filthy in two days. Take it off."

"But—" Pauline stroked one sleeve, preening once again in front of the mirror. Then in slow motion, she slid her arms from the coat, hanging it on its hanger, but not placing it amongst the other coats on the rack. With her eyes still glued to the coat she followed her mother from the store.

"Here," called Jessie to Pauline the following day as she sorted through the front hall closet. "Here's a coat. It was Evelyn's. I can make it down for you."

Pauline inched toward the closet. Wrinkling her nose, she crooked her little finger through the neck loop of the coat her mother was handing her. She remembered the coat. It had looked okay on her big sister when she'd worn it a couple of years ago.

"But Evelyn is a red-head, and big. Gray suits her. I'm blonde, and petite," she said to herself, sniffing and giving her head a toss. "I need bright colors." Reluctantly, she slipped her arms into the sleeves. They hung four inches beyond her hands, and the coat reached almost to her ankles. "Mo-om! This'll never fit me."

"You wait and see." Jessie approached her daughter, tucking and folding, measuring the coat with her practiced eye. "You just wait and see."

Together, mother and daughter ripped, turned, sized, and stitched the main seams of the gray coat, Pauline, all the while chattering about how "green was her colour—a light green, like the coat in the store."

It was Monday. By sheer will power, Jessie forced her body from her bed and struggled into her housecoat. She staggered to the bathroom. "Another day. How am I ever going to get through it?" She splashed cold water onto her face.

After making some tea she wobbled back to the bedroom, setting her cup on the wing of the Singer, treadle sewing machine. She crawled onto the bed. "I must get that hem in," she gasped, hauling the coat to her. With her fingers trembling, she threaded the needle.

Just as she was plunging it into the material for the first stitch, she heard the familiar chug-chug-splutter of Marge's Thames station wagon as it came to a stop in front of the house. Her heart flipped. "Just what I need, the cheery presence of my friend."

"Honey?" Marge entered the kitchen without knocking. "Brought you some soup." Not seeing her friend, she dropped the jar of soup onto the counter and hurried into the bedroom, where she found Jessie propped up by pillows, a cumbersome coat on her lap.

"What in the world are you doing?" scolded Marge.

"Hemming this for Pauline." Jessie flashed her friend a weak smile. "She doesn't have a winter coat."

"Well by the looks of you, you should be in the hospital. You can hardly hold your head up . . . Here." She reached for the coat. "Let me finish it."

"No!" Jessie jerked the coat out of her friend's reach. "I've got to do it. I want to do it. It's the last thing I'll ever be able to do for her. After all, she's my baby." She swallowed the tears she could feel forming behind her eyelids.

Marge wanted to protest the statement, "It's the last thing I'll ever be able to do for her," but the look on her friend's face made her decide to let it pass.

While the needle continued to plunge in and out, in and out, in and out, the two friends chatted and giggled.

"Oh, Marge, I don't know what I would have done without you these past few years." Her face flushed, her words coming in puffs, Jessie dropped the coat onto her lap and swiped at a tear, brought on partly by the laughter, and partly by—

"And, sweetie, I don't know what I would have done without you," replied Marge, swallowing the lump that threatened to choke her.

They embraced, fear clutching each of their hearts: Marge's, because she was afraid she wouldn't have her friend much longer, and Jessie's, because she knew she wouldn't.

Jessie pushed away, grasping at her sewing again. Her head feeling like a ton of lead, and her insides like they were on fire, she continued her needle plunging.

While Marge went to the kitchen to warm the soup and arrange a tray, Jessie wormed her way out of bed. Slithering to the floor, she crawled to the bathroom.

"Honey!" Marge looked up when she saw her friend creeping across the floor. She ran to help her. "Please let me take you to the hospital . . . Now."

"Marge..." Jessie's voice was coming in gasps, but she managed to force a smile. "As soon ... as I've . . . finished the coat I'll go . . . I promise."

For two more hours Marge chatted, forcing herself to be jovial. It wasn't usually hard for her, but watching her friend suffer, she found any conversation difficult.

Jessie's eyes misted over; her breath was coming in short puffs; concentration was an effort; she wasn't hearing her friend anymore; her hands constantly made mistakes; she couldn't see the needle. But by force of will, she urged her fingers to continue.

"Fin. . . finished!" she gasped, snipping the thread and pushing the heavy coat from her lap. She flopped onto the pillows. "Call. . . the am… ambulance. What. . . are. . .you . . . waiting for?" Her lips stretched into a forced smile; her eyelids drooped shut.

The sisters hadn't spoken for several minutes, as each of them had been remembering in her own way those last days of their mother's life. Then Pauline, reaching into her purse and taking out her spotless, white handkerchief, unfolded it slowly. She dabbed at her eyes, and in a voice barely audible, she said, "Oh that special coat! Yes, that was the last thing my mother did."

Two days later the Lord took our mother home."

© Helen Dowd - 1992