Chips Off The Block

  She walked along 14th Street, wondering where she put that grocery list. Checking pockets, she mumbled something that to others was gibberish, but she understood herself. Yet it didn’t help her find that grocery list.

  “Hey Grandma, whatcha talkin’ ’bout?”

  The men went unnoticed. All she could think about was that grocery list.

  “Don’t go talkin’ to that old bat. She’d bite your head off as soon as look at ’cha.”

  She jammed hands into pockets, feeling lint and ragged seams, but no list. She mumbled something else, her words drawn away by the wind and voices that tried to capture her mutterings. She kept walking, paying no one no mind.

  After what were moments to her, minutes to others, she stopped, smiled, frowned, then again shoved hands into her pockets. Beyond frayed cotton fragments lie something that to the touch felt like a list. If she dug deeply enough, fiddled with the lint long enough, those weather digits could fashion a list, her past, a life. How many times did her daughter-in-law scowl, putting the bus token in her palm, folding fingers around it like protecting a jewel. How many times did her niece tie the house key on a single-stitch yarn chain and slip that necklace around the woman’s head. How many times… She played with the fray in the deepest corner, then stopped. Someone, her mother or great aunt, told her time after time she would put holes in her dress, and no one wants a holey dress, not even for Sundays. She smiled, wishing she could find her list. She would put hat on it. She hadn’t worn a hat in years.

  If she had a hat, maybe she could find the list. A bean cover, her father had called it, but until she was much older, she wondered what bean was he talking about? Beans were covered in dirt in spring, planted well into the damp brown soil. She stared at the street, strewn with refuse. No dirt here.

  And no list. Again she rummaged into her pockets, hoping, hoping… But no list appeared. She looked behind her, no one close. No one was around her, no one for years or miles or…

  “Miss Margaret, Miss Margaret?” Suddenly a woman appeared, like how her daddy’s beans popped through the earth not long after she had helped plant them. A bean cover, she had asked her daddy, and he sighed, then wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Then he kissed her forehead: No Maggie, just beans. Her father always called her Maggie. But others used her long name. And some added Miss.

  “Miss Margaret, we’ve been looking for you. C’mon now Miss Margaret. We need to go back.”

  “List,” she said. “I need to find my list.”

  The woman sighed, just like Margaret’s father used to. But the woman didn’t kiss Margaret’s forehead. She did grasp her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Miss Margaret, what are we gonna do with you?”

  As they started walking, Margaret recalled her name. She had forgotten about the list. Within moments for her, minutes for others, Margaret’s own name slipped far away. She put one hand into her pocket, playing with the frayed lint, while her other hand was clasped gently, how her daddy used to hold it, walking back from the field, talking about the beans.

  His Beer Bottle, Her New Key