I only planned to store some clothes in the attic from a previous life. Life had other ideas.
She pointed to a trunk plastered with exotic names and stamps.
My grandmother’s fur coat was in the trunk, eaten by moths and a failed marriage.
A faded postcard from my grandfather hid in one of the pockets, the writing smudged and waterlogged from a brief swim in the Atlantic.
In the other pocket was a one-way ticket, crisped around the edges. Some say it was an accident, a lantern tipped over by the wind. Others say my grandfather’s anger spontaneously lit the house on fire.
This trunk. This coat. This is all I have of my grandmother, the woman I loved more than any of my husbands.
The woman who whispered,
The only way to get rid of an old flame is to set a new fire.
published in Imogene's Notebook
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