“Excuse me! Can I have that? It’s for my mom.”
The voice, small but sharp, cut through the biting Cleveland wind.
A nine-year-old girl named Nora darted towards the hospital orderly, a tired woman in gray scrubs who was about to heave a black trash bag into a cavernous dumpster. The bag was full of a former patient’s discarded clothes. “She doesn’t have anything warm to wear,” Nora pressed, her breath misting in the cold.
The orderly sighed, her shoulders slumping. It had been a long shift. “Where did you even come from, kid?”
“I’ve been waiting,” Nora said, her eyes fixed on the bag.
“I know sometimes you throw away good things. People leave clothes behind. My mom… she needs a coat.
It’s getting so cold.”
The woman’s tired expression hardened for a moment. “Your mother should be out working, not sending her child to dig through hospital refuse.” Then, her gaze softened as she looked at the girl’s determined face and thin jacket. “Fine.
Take what you need. But be quick about it, before the supervisor sees you. Go on, hurry.”
Nora didn’t need to be told twice.
The orderly held out a heavy coat she’d been about to toss, and Nora snatched it from her hands. She scrambled out of the hospital’s service alley and onto the street, her heart pounding with triumph. What a haul.
This wasn’t just a coat; it was a treasure. It was made of a thick, warm wool the color of rich chocolate, with a soft, dark fur collar. It was heavy, substantial.
It smelled faintly of something lovely and distant—of lavender, clean soap, and a whisper of expensive perfume. It smelled like a life her mother used to know. Clutching her prize, Nora navigated the rattling journey home on the city bus.
She flew up the five flights of stairs to their cramped apartment in the crumbling pre-war building and pushed open the front door. It was, as always, unlocked. “Mom!
Mom, look what I found for you!”
Nora burst into the dim room and skidded to a halt beside the bed. A painfully thin woman lay there, her long, elegant fingers resting on a worn copy of an poetry book. Dark chestnut hair, once glossy and vibrant, was scattered in dull waves across the pillow.
Even in the depths of her illness, Elena was beautiful, with the aristocratic bone structure and pale, marble-like skin of a classic painting. “Nora? You startled me.
I think I must have dozed off,” Elena murmured, her voice thin as thread. “What did you bring?”
“A coat, Mom. A beautiful one,” Nora said, her words tumbling out.
“They were clearing out some things at the hospital, and I asked for it. I know you don’t have a warm one.”
A flicker of something—pride, sadness—crossed Elena’s face. “Oh, my clever, clever girl.
What would I do without you? Your mother is useless, can’t even seem to get well.”
“Don’t say that,” Nora said quickly. “You just need to rest.
I’ll make dinner. We have pasta, and there’s that can of tuna. Please, just rest.”
Elena’s illness had a name: depression.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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