A Torn Shirt
The house was warm, welcoming. A fire glowed and candles burned in their sconces
sending halo’s of golden light reflected back from the picture of the ship that
was hanging above the mantle. An oil lamp shone its flickering light from the
center of the table at which they had sat earlier to share their supper.
The older man had left the house a little earlier, choosing to spend the last
hours of the day with his drinking companions in the tavern where they could
boast about battles fought against wild seas, and delve into their memories for
even longer tales with which to regale each other.
She sat with her dark head bowed over the linen, and her fingers darted in and
out as she drew the thread on the needle through the torn shirt. Sensing his
eyes upon her, she glanced up and smiled. A smile that told him she loved him,
that there were no words to describe that love. The look in her eyes was more
than sufficient, and for some seconds their eyes were locked in an intimacy too
private and too intense for any intrusion.
“You were down at the harbor for a long time today,” she said quietly, bending
once more to her task.
“How would you know that? Have you been downstairs peeking through the window?”
He leaned towards the fire and lit a taper which he took to his pipe.
“I could smell the sea on your shirt and the smell of tobacco - it lingers.” She
held the shirt up and examined the rent. Then she turned twinkling eyes to him.
“What were you thinking about?”
“Oh, daydreaming. I was thinking about where we will live, one day, you, our
son, perhaps another son.” He glanced over at her and smiled as she put a hand
unconsciously onto the mound of her body where the infant lay concealed. “And
what it would be like.”
She smiled a faint smile; beneath her hand the infant kicked, and she looked up
at her husband who had taken the chair opposite her, a gentle smile on his
handsome face and a look of pride in his dark eyes.
“It will be a wonderful home, Ben, and there will be trees, and mountains, and a
river running right by our house. Our son will be handsome, just like his
father, and tall.” She paused, then lowered her head; perhaps it was not wise to
say too much about her dreams, and hopes for the future. Sometimes, it was
almost like tempting fate.
She said no more, but continued to ply her needle. As he watched her, he felt
his heart tighten, as though his love for her were like the thread she was using
on the torn shirt but that instead she was sewing her heart to his, an invisible
strand never to be broken.
*********
“What have you got there?” he leaned over his wife’s shoulder as she pulled out a shirt and shook it loose of its creases.
She was
sitting among the grasses, and the wild flowers were nodding over at her; he was
sitting by her side. They sat very close, close enough for him to see the fine
hairs on her cheeks, as soft as the down on the skin of a peach. The sun made
her golden hair shimmer like a halo about her head.
“An old shirt of yours, Ben. See, it has been torn already.” She showed him the
neatly sewn rent in the shirt and he remembered how Elizabeth had sat there
sewing with her needle, beside the fire at their home in New England, “Adam
needs a new shirt now; he is growing big. Perhaps now is the time to cut this
old shirt up for it to make a new one
for him, yes?”
He smiled softly, his eyes darker. He took the shirt gently from her and held it
to his face. That invisible thread from long ago pulled at his heart. Inger put
a hand to his cheek and smiled gently. “Not this shirt then; another perhaps?”
It was not fair to her, he thought, but he could not let go, not yet; his torn
shirt was still too valuable to him for him to let it go.
**********
He sat by
the fire and watched his wife reading. It was a comfortable hour, with the
children in bed -- all except Adam who sat just a little away from them, turned
to one side, his eyes scanning the words of a book. She looked up at him, smiled
and he smiled back at her and nodded, waiting for her to speak.
“Ben, I was clearing up some things and found this old shirt.” From the basket
of clothing, piled neatly by her side, she showed him the shirt. “I was
wondering whether to cut it up for polishing rags. Hop Sing needed …” She paused
as he reached out and took it and looked at it. “It’s just an old shirt, Ben' it
was torn once. Look, someone has sewed it already.”
Yes, of course someone had sewn it already, he thought, someone with dark hair
and twinkling eyes who could smell the sea and understood my dreams. His heart
ached as the invisible thread twitched so, and he looked over at the boy reading
his book and remembered how she, Elizabeth, had talked about her son as she had
sat and sewn this shirt.
**********
“Hop Sing?”
He peered into the kitchen and saw the rags piled on the table and shook his
head as his eyes fell upon the neatly sewn tear. He walked over and picked up
the remnant of an old torn shirt, “My old shirt.” he murmured.
“Maybe one time, all gone now,” Hop Sing declared blithely.
Yes, all gone now. He sighed and put it back on the pile, turned away and walked
to the window. Outside it was snowing and he could not see the ocean nor smell
it from where he stood. But just for an instant the fresh salt tang had touched
his nostrils along with the perfume she had worn that evening as she sat sewing
his torn shirt and tied his heart to
hers.
*****End*****
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