The Tan Suede Jacket
THE
TAN SUEDE JACKET
The son was the apple of his parents’ eyes and the eyes of almost all around him.
Outgoing, handsome and charming, he brightened every gathering, even if he hadn’t seemed to quite find his way in life.
They were all waiting to see what he would become, this young man with so many natural talents.
As his twenties went on, they were still waiting.
Then he became ill. It was gradual and so people didn’t really notice, other than wondering why he looked thinner.
By the time they all found out, he was on his way to dying and there was nothing that could be done about it.
By that time the jacket was back in the father’s wardrobe, because the son had moved in with his parents to be cared for by them.
Everyone pretended it wasn’t the end, but they all knew otherwise.
Especially him, the lovely young man with bright eyes and a soft voice who was so kind to the girl who would, one day, wear his jacket.
The jacket came her way several years after he died.
The parents were moving and reducing the amount of their belongings.
The father didn’t wear the jacket, and couldn’t bear to think about his son no longer being alive to wear it, so he decided to give it away. It was, after all, still a good jacket.
The girl, now a young woman, was thrilled to have it.
She wore it in winter, going to see bands at pubs in the inner west of Sydney, because she felt cooler in that jacket than in anything else she owned.
And she wanted to be cool. After hard years at school, leaving with no friends, being cool seemed to be a way to become accepted.
She met her first boyfriend while she was wearing the jacket.
Once she started staying over at his place – a share house near the university they both attended, where she was studying science – she left it in his closet so they could each wear it when they felt like it.
Because it was a man’s jacket, it looked good on him, and leaving it at his place was a way of cementing a connection with him, even as she suspected he didn’t want that.
But it was what she thought she was meant to do: give up parts of herself to a man, like an offering, so he might choose her.
After five months, this boyfriend chose someone else – a taller, longer-haired, prettier young woman who was studying a degree with fewer campus hours than science.
The girl left the jacket in his closet. She didn’t have the heart to wear it again.
Years later she would regret it, because the jacket had belonged to that young man whom she missed, the only young man who had ever shown her kindness.
Since then, the jacket has passed from person to person and op shop to op shop. It is still in good condition and is waiting for its next owner.