THE COAT

She picked it out. He gave it away. Then handed it back with a lie

Since moving to America, life hadn’t been easy—or so her mother reminded her. Often. Loudly. Softly. In every unpurchased thing.

Everything cost more.
Money didn’t stretch the way it did back home.
New clothes were for people with fewer regrets.

She liked shopping with her father.

He said he liked her taste.

They wandered through the fancy department stores—the ones her mother avoided like they were contagious. She picked coats, ran her fingers along the seams of dresses that looked like possibilities. He nodded. Smiled. Asked for her opinion.

Always coats that hung too loose on her. Dresses with sleeves too long.

Always two sizes too big.
On her 12th birthday, he came home with a plain brown paper bag. No ribbon. No ceremony.

Inside: the coat.
One she’d picked out the year before.

She reached for it instinctively. Fingers on the fabric. Words rising.

But then—her mother’s face.

A look that said don’t ask.
Don’t say it.
Not here.

She flipped the coat over anyway.

She knew.
The stitching.
The smell.
The way it didn’t quite look new.

It had been worn. Just not by her.

It had always been for the girl she was dressing.
The girl she was never going to be.