Words Annee Lyons
She never noticed the jacket when he was alive.
It hung by the door, another part of the farmhouse. After the funeral, she took it on the train, slung over her arm without thinking.
In the city, it feels heavier than she thought it would. It’s too big for her – sleeves too long, fabric too stiff, pockets too deep. She wears it anyway, soothed by the pull at her shoulders.
In a pocket, she finds a plastic screw, a metal nut, and a wooden peg. She turns them over, feeling their textures and weights, wondering what’s missing them.
Like every half-finished task he left behind, they don’t make sense without him. She imagines him wiping his brow before tucking the pieces away, feeling frustrated that his once steady hands could no longer make them fit.
Now, her trembling fingers keep reaching for them, searching in the jacket’s depths.
She never asked him what he was building, but she knew all the same: a stool by the fireplace, a shim for the barn door, a jig for repairing the sled in the yard. He was always fixing things, always breaking things, always what he called ‘keeping busy’.
These small bits of his life linger in her pocket, remnants of all that remains unfinished. The projects we don’t complete. The conversations we never have.
They stay with her, rattling softly against each other as she walks.
Maybe some things don’t need to fit together. Maybe it’s enough just to carry them.
Annee Lyons
A Mid-Atlantic American living in South London, Annee Lyons writes about the quiet complexities of everyday life. Her work explores themes of family, grief and memory, drawing inspiration from the people and places she loves most. As a Marshall Scholar, she earned an MPhil in Ancient History from the University of Oxford, and, as a Beinecke Scholar, an MA in Film and Screen Media from Birkbeck, University of London.
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