Dublin, Ireland

My mother’s handwriting is on the inside of my winter coat

Dear Delyara, I am forty-seven and still own a winter coat my mother bought me when I first moved away from home. She died eleven years ago. I wore the coat today because the weather suddenly turned cold. While looking for a missing button, I noticed writing on the inside label. My name and old phone number in Mum’s handwriting. She must have written it before I left because she thought I would lose the coat. I was twenty-three. I remember becoming annoyed when she labeled my things as if I were still at school. I probably told her not to. The ink is faded but legible. I stood in a train station touching the label like an idiot while commuters pushed around me. A mother wrote her adult son’s name inside his coat because she was still the person who imagined things could be lost and returned if properly labelled. She was right about the coat surviving. The phone number is dead. The address is gone. She is gone. Somehow, her handwriting is still travelling to work with me inside a lining I never bothered to examine.