by Lisa Thornton
Clothes on metal hangers whizzed by. A man turned a key, and the procession froze. He picked a hanger and hung it on a hook by the cash register.
The blazer on the hanger was not Midge’s. It was red with silver buttons. Midge had never owned anything red. The last blazer she wore was for a spelling bee in elementary school when she stood in front of God and everyone and misspelled the word field. It could be hers, though. Midge paid the man and hung the blazer on her shower curtain rod. It was the color of fresh blood, like the little ball that used to form on Harl’s finger when he poked it with a needle to check his sugars.
Midge tried the blazer on, looking at herself in the mirror from the front and then the side. She squinted at her reflection and wondered about the woman who owned the blazer before. Was she an actress? A businesswoman? Midge imagined her as someone with designer eyeglasses, a woman people stopped what they were doing to listen to.
Lily was at a table when Midge arrived at the coffee shop. Lily announced her hairstylist was quitting and being a widow was worse when the weather was nice. Lily complained about the prices of groceries and the long-term forecast for a dry summer.
Midge felt a power surge within her, as if she had inherited the right to inhabit a bigger space. She interrupted her sister-in-law and said that she missed her husband too. That she also had things to say and ideas to discuss. That she would like it very much if their conversation could have two sides-one for Lily, and one for Midge. Lily folded her napkin into a small square while Midge was talking and then said through pursed lips, I’m sorry you feel like that, which felt different to Midge than I’m sorry.
When she wore the blazer to the store, a young mother asked Midge which butter was better-salted or unsalted? Just walked right up to her in the dairy aisle. The cashier smiled at Midge, revealing two silver molars on the upper right. Midge’s hand moved to her throat. For the first time in decades, Lily did not call Midge on Sunday afternoon.
Midge hung the blazer on the shower curtain rod and cleaned the wood surfaces in her house with polish and a cloth. She’d always wanted to exude confidence. She’d always wished people would pay attention to her. But she realized now that being invisible is private. It’s quiet. It doesn’t hurt people.
This doesn’t belong to me, she told the man at the dry cleaner the next day as she hung the red blazer back on the hook. Midge knew Harl would have understood. He would not think she had failed or was a coward. He would agree that your life fits you like a garment and yours is the one you should wear.
Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse. She has work in SmokeLong Quarterly, Hippocampus Magazine, Pithead Chapel, and other literary magazines. She has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction award and the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize. Her stories have been nominated for the Best of the Net award and the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Illinois and can be found on Bluesky and Instagram @thorntonforreal.
Emerge Literary Journal 