A Piece of Sky
By: Jessica Gupta
Tags: Literally Literary, Inspiration, Fiction, Love, Family

Image by Andrea Don from Pixabay

I grabbed my jacket off the hook by the front door and slid my arms through the sleeves. Beginning at the top, I pushed each button through its hole until I reached the one at the bottom. It drooped over the lip of the hole, forlorn.

Ruthless, I yanked the button from the fabric, ripping the last sad threads with it. I threw it on the dish where my keys usually lay and took a quick glance in the full length mirror on the wall.

As I pulled the bottom of the jacket, smoothing out stray wrinkles, the empty button hole glared at me in reproach.

I heard my mother’s voice, “No daughter of mine will go out into the world looking like a ragged street urchin.”

I sighed, rolled my eyes at my reflection, and began undoing the remaining buttons.

My mother’s bag of buttons was right where I left it, shoved in the far corner of the top shelf of my closet. I strained to reach it, up on tiptoe, finally hopping to grab with fumbling fingers at the soft, well worn fabric.

I unwrapped the tightly coiled strings and plunged my hand in through the mouth of the draw string sack. My fingers met a bottomless pile of cool, hard coins. A pirate’s horde of forgotten treasure flowed through my hand.

My chest tightened. A hot, roiling ball formed in my throat and rose to choke me. I withdrew my hand and slowly tilted the bag until a trickle, then a stream, then a waterfall of buttons clattered to the floor of my bedroom, until the bag was empty.

I sank to the floor and ran my palms lightly over the surface of the sea of plastic, metal, and glass. I retrieved a solid brass circle from the waves and weighed it in my hand, ran my thumb over its smooth face.

Photo by Desmond Simon on Unsplash

The young man’s face was smooth, too. Child that I was, even I thought he looked young. Too young for the olive uniform that dwarfed his lanky frame.

My mother circled him, pulling and pinning and straightening as she went. I watched a swallow travel painfully down the man’s throat as he stared at his image in the mirror.

“Your father’s uniform?” my mother said, glancing at the reflection of his face and then away.

“Yes,” He cleared his throat, “Yes. It was.”

“He must be very proud.”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“He is,” My mother brooked no refusal.

“Are you going to fight?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Marin!”

He pulled his gaze from the mirror and met mine. I would not look away.

“Yes.”

“My mother says it’s not brave if you’re not afraid.”

“Then, I suppose I’m the bravest soldier you’ll meet.”

Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

I placed the brass button off to my side and let my eyes wander over the ocean before me. A pale pink shell called to my fingers, and I plucked it from the mound.

The pale pink baby wriggled fitfully in her mother’s arms. The woman shhh’ed and rocked and bounced. Still the baby mewled, a fractious kitten wrapped in a pink blanket.

“Can I hold her?” I stretched my arms toward the bundle.

The woman’s eyes grew wide, “Oh! No. No, I don’t think so.”

“She is very careful, very gentle with babies,” My mother looked up, her fingers still pulling and pushing a flash of silver through the delicate pink fabric, a small pile of pearly pink shell buttons on a table at her side.

“Well, I — ”

“I won’t be finished for a while yet. Perhaps your arms would enjoy a break.”

The woman met my mother’s eyes, then turned to me, appraising.

“Well, alright then,” She stood and brought the bundle over to where I sat, placed the baby so carefully in my arms, a bomb that could go off any moment.

The baby’s eyes, an uncertain greyish blue, peered up at my face. I smiled, ran my hand over the silky dome of her head. My finger traced across her forehead, her eyebrows, her nose. She stilled in my arms, transfixed. Her warm weight settled against me.

I felt the woman watch me, but I kept my eyes on the baby, afraid to break the spell.

“This christening will be quite beautiful. The fabric you chose is so lovely.”

“Thank you,” The woman returned to her uneasy perch, “I just need, I mean I just want it to be perfect.”

“I’m sure it will be.”

The woman sighed with a weight much heavier than the one I now held in my arms.

“My husband wanted a boy.”

“That is not uncommon. But, you can try another time perhaps.”

“She is my third daughter,” I didn’t know a small voice could hold so much sorrow.

“Then you are lucky,” My mother was brisk, “I have only my one, but her worth to me is greater than ten boys.”

“And your husband? Did he not want a boy?

“My husband wanted many things. But, a boy? No. No, I don’t think he needed a boy to bring a smile to his face.”

I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I had been holding.

Photo by Tixie on Unsplash

The pink shell joined the brass button beside me. I leaned forward and raked my fingers through the piles, leaving trails of blue carpet peeking between the ridges. Out of the corner of my eye, a gleaming black planet drew my attention with a magnetic pull. I enveloped it in my hand, my fingers curled into a tight fist.

“What are you doing?”

“Ay! Lower your voice, Marin! You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

The sharp end of her seam ripper continued its merciless shredding of the threads that held the button to the jacket.

“Mama, what are you doing to my father’s jacket?”

“What a silly question. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You’re destroying his jacket!”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Marin. I’m not destroying anything.”

“No? Who wears a jacket with no buttons?”

“No one is going to wear this jacket anyway, buttons or no.”

“I wear it,” My voice was a whisper, “Sometimes.”

My mother’s hands paused, rested on the cracked black leather.

“I’m sorry, Marin.”

I drew up beside her, wrapped my fingers around the collar of the jacket, and gently pulled.

My mother’s fingers gripped the folds, unyielding.

I pulled harder.

“No, Marin.”

“Mama!”

“No. I am sorry, but no. Buttons are expensive and I…we cannot afford to be wasteful.”

I let go of the leather, my hands curling into fists. The leather’s lingering earthy smell followed me as I turned and walked to the door. At the threshold, I paused and looked back at my mother in her chair.

“There is no We in this, Mama.”

I’ve never seen my mother look so small.

Photo by Brandon Morgan on Unsplash

I brought the black button up to my nose, imagined I could still smell leather. But, I couldn’t. The button went into my pocket.

An iridescent shine stood out among its sisters and brothers. I reached for it, held the slippery pearl between my thumb and forefinger.

The bride was a princess. All of them were. That’s what my mother told them. That’s what I told them too, because it was true. Every one.

Her hands twisted the small band with the glittering diamond on her fourth finger. Back and forth, she worried it. I wondered if the ring would wear her skin away.

“The dress will be ready in time, not to worry. I’ve never missed a deadline yet.”

“Oh, of course! I know that. So many of my friends recommended you. I know I’m in good hands.”

My mother smiled, nodding her thanks.

“Are you married?”

“I was.”

“Were you happy?”

“Yes. Mostly. I am happy still, though my husband is gone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“How did you know? That he was, the one?”

My mother’s hands flowed over the satin, following the seams, searching for weaknesses.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps that is too personal,” The bride’s pale face blushed pink, then red.

“My husband was, kind. Patient. Generous. He was everything I am not.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“No, it is. We both had nothing growing up. So poor. I always wanted more, and I was, hardened, by the wanting. But, he was not. He could always give, no matter how little he had. It angered me, sometimes. But, I envied him as well.”

“He sounds wonderful.”

“He was just a man my dear. But, he was the right man for me. Just as your fiancé is the right man for you, yes?”

“Yes,” The bride nodded.

My mother took the last pearl button and sewed it into place on the line leading up the bride’s back.

“Yes, he is the one for me.” The bride let go of her ring and placed her hands lightly on the gown draped over her hips.

Image by Jakub Jenšovský from Pixabay

The pearl slipped from my fingers. As I reached to reacquire it, my gaze fell on a burgundy rose, raised on a navy background.

I twisted and squirmed in front of the mirror. The blue wool made my wrists and the back of my neck itch.

“Stop fidgeting, Marin.”

“I can’t help it, Mama.”

“Of course you can. Be still.”

I groaned but forced myself to be stiff as a board.

“Navy is such a handsome color.”

“I guess.”

“A smart, serious color.”

“Really, Mama? A smart color?”

“Yes, my sassy daughter. A smart color.”

“Well, looking smart does not make you so.”

“No, it does not. But, it cannot hurt.”

“Mama, why are we doing this?”

“You want to go to school in a uniform that does not fit?”

“I want to go to a school where there is no uniform. A school that does not cost you so much.”

“The cost is my concern, not yours.”

“But, I am concerned. And, it isn’t necessary. I can get a good enough education where I was.”

“Good enough is not good enough.”

“Mama!”

“You have worked hard. You are smart. Now you will look smart and you will go to a smart school.”

“Mama, I — ”

“No. This is done. I want more for you than that school. More than this tiny apartment with no windows, no sun, no light. “

“I don’t need more, Mama.”

“I want more for you. I want, a piece of sky. For you.”

“Okay, Mama.”

Photo by Jennifer Burk on Unsplash

The rose pressed into my palm, I dug with my other hand through the pile until I found it. A navy button with circles within circles within circles. A slice of a dark blue tree, its rings telling a story of centuries.

“I could have bought a suit, Mama.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Marin. You are not going to your interviews in an off the rack suit.”

“But, your hands — ”

“My hands are fine.”

“The doctor said sewing makes it worse.”

“The doctor does not know more about my pain than I do,” The button flew from my mother’s rigid fingers as the needle pricked the pad of her thumb. “Dammit!”

“I’ll get it.”

“No! You’ll ruin the suit.”

My mother went down stiffly to the floor. On her knees, she stretched her arm beneath the table, and reached with her still bleeding thumb and fingers for the errant button.

She finished the final touches in silence, and then stood before me, picking here and there at infinitesimal specks of lint.

I grabbed her hands and looked down at them. I gently pulled each finger from the curled claws my mother’s hands had become, pressing around each joint, pushing down to the bone. When I finished, I looked up into my mother’s face.

“The suit looks good on you.”

“It’s navy,” I smiled.

“A smart color,” we said together. Then we laughed.

“It’s perfect, Mama.”

She reached her hand to my face and brushed her curled fingers against my cheek.

“I know.”

Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

The rose and the tree rings joined my father’s black button in my pocket. Grabbing fistfuls of buttons, I thrust them back into the bag and then drew the strings shut.

I climbed the winding, narrow staircase that led from the second floor of my townhouse to a loft above. A wall of boxes crowded the small space. One by one, I carried them down to the hallway below.

Beginning at the bottom stair, bag next to me and a bottle in my hand, I took a button, smeared it with glue, and held it in place until it adhered to the wood. Then another button, and another. As I knelt upon each finished stair, the buttons pressed into my legs.

At last I finished the final step, the bag almost empty. I gazed down the stairs, smiling at the bright mosaic laid out before me.

I crawled up into the loft and hugged my legs to my chest, running my fingers along the indentations in my legs left by the buttons, marks that would fade from my skin but not my memory.

Lying back on the floor, I placed one hand behind my head while the other held the three buttons in my pocket. I looked up through the skylight above, at my piece of sky.