St. Anthony

I really must be getting old—losing something last week nearly left me in tears.  How could a three-inch square of a coin purse mean so much?

 

I bought it on our vacation to Cooperstown the summer Clare was ten.  We studied the exhibits at the Hall of Fame, sat behind home plate at Doubleday Field; the sprinklers were on, and Clare brought along Molly, her American Girl doll who just happened to be dressed in a baseball uniform.  Then we drove up to Niagara Falls.

 

I bought the purse on the Canadian side, hence the maple leafs embossed on brown leather.  If I didn’t think of Cooperstown, of Clare sitting with Molly in that bandbox of a ballpark in upstate New York, every time I used that purse, it was damn’ close to it.  Then I went and lost the thing.

 

Maybe I was distracted by the phone call the cashier was handling and how he tried to reassure the caller there was no looting going on; we live in strange times.  Or I’ve become old and forgetful.  As it was, I didn’t realize the purse was missing for three days, and, when I went back to the store, it was no dice.

 

On the chance that something might’ve turned up over the weekend, I went back on Monday.  Lo and behold, someone had found it.  My life is complete, the leather holder of a memory I don’t ever want to forget back where it belongs.