It was new when Joyce was a young mother. An inexpensive, slightly flawed, 100% cotton, light blue, buttoned-down the front shirt. Nothing fancy, rather plain actually. But it was comfortable and she wore it a lot for a few years and then reserved it for those occasions where only an old shirt would suffice. It collected the stains of motherhood: spaghetti sauce, chocolate ice cream, and perspiration, among others. Each washing wore it a little thinner, but a little softer and the stains faded until they were barely visible.
Now, as she ironed out the wrinkles (wishing hers could be ironed out as well), Joyce worried that it wouldn’t hold up to another washing. The seams were in good shape, but she could see the design of the ironing board cover peeking through the thin cloth on the back. The manufacturing flaw, a slight puckering of the fabric under the right armpit, now stood like a road sign over the very spot the doctor told her she had cancer just a few months ago.
Joyce didn’t realize the coincidence until she noticed that the flaw had weakened the fabric and was gradually turning into a hole that resembled a run in a pair of nylon stockings. It was irreparable. Holes and all, she was determined to wear the shirt until it wore out, or she did. Her daughter thought it was worn out now and tried to get Joyce to throw it away.
“I wore this shirt when I carried both you and your brother home from the hospital,” the old woman said. “Your brother and your father both hugged me when I was wearing this shirt, as did you, when your hands were grubby with mud pies. I wore it when I buried your brother and I put it on the night your father died. I intend to keep wearing it.”
The daughter understood after that and even wrote her mother’s name on the tag before taking Joyce to the hospital, like she was sending her child off to summer camp, instead of her mother off to a double mastectomy. Frowning at the memory, Joyce buttoned the shirt, loose where it used to be snug, and rolled the cuffs up. The warmth from the iron seeped through the fabric into her skin.
Ready for another day’s routine, she bent down to unplug the iron, heard a soft tear and felt the fabric, pulled taut over her back with the movement, give way. Just then, the phone rang. “Hello,” she answered with a shaky voice. Suddenly hot, Joyce wiped a bead of sweat off her forehead. It’s only a shirt. She tried to relax and forced herself to listen to the caller. “Yes, doctor,” she replied, “I understand.”
After hanging up, she staggered to the bedroom, frantically unbuttoning the shirt. The buttons held tighter than they had in years, as if they knew that she finally understood. She threw the shirt off into a wastebasket. The collar sneered over the edge and Joyce shoved it down further into the basket.
Her son was so small the day he wore the shirt. He’d been swimming, so she draped it over his shivering body. Months later, doctors discovered cancer in his kidney, below the very spot that the flaw had rested on his tiny belly.
Years later, her husband had worn the shirt like a blanket to keep mosquitoes away as they sat in front of a campfire. In six months he was dead from lung cancer.
The only thing Joyce didn’t understand was why she took so long to get sick. She realized her daughter had never worn the shirt and Joyce promised herself to make sure the young woman never would. First, though, she needed rest. Closing her eyes, she lowered herself to the bed and tried to keep her head from spinning.
One week later, the daughter began clearing out Joyce’s house. Noticing the shirt in the wastebasket, she said, “I wonder why mom threw this away, it was her favorite.” She drew it to her and inhaled her mother’s scent. She slipped it on and quietly went about the business at hand.
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