Doc Martens
art by Shannon Kavanagh
The realtor’s tall, wears a camel hair coat. I look down at my shoes. At sixty, I’m sporting Doc Martens. Black leather, laces, huge rubber soles. Bright yellow stitching, mocking my grief. Tom gave them to me last Christmas.
A memory slams me: our first anniversary, Tom giving me clogs. We spent that night in Annapolis. After a leisurely breakfast we took a stroll through the town. There they were in a store window, soft black suede, blond wooden sole. He saw my lust, pulled open the door, the smell of fine leather beckoned me in. He insisted I try the clogs on. Pulled out the credit card when he saw I was transformed. The clogs said: You are more than a young wife and mother. You are creative, artistic, you have a voice and a path of your own. They were expensive for us, especially then, with a baby at home. He laughed at the noise I made on the cobblestones back to the car.
The realtor’s pretty. Her make up is perfect. The condo is huge for this building, twelve hundred square feet. She thinks I’m not sold. The balcony view is stunning, she says.
I was right out of college when Tom and I met. He was eleven years older than me. He turned thirty-five when our first child was born. Forty, when we purchased the house we love and will leave now. At seventy-one he’s been told there’s no cure. We’ll move here for the one-level living. He needs a room with a view for his hospital bed at the end.
The realtor strides to a closet, opens the door. We stand shoulder to shoulder in an interior space looking at artifacts of lives intertwined — his pants here, her shoes there. I need a window, some air.
Stop it, now. Smile bright. Talk about financing, fees. Ask the realtor if she has another condo to show, one with a view?
His gift of Doc Martens said: thank you for missing your punk years for me, your wild years for me.
Live them after I’m gone.
He stands in front of me at a precipice, reaching back for my hand. Even with his encouragement, I can’t look over.
No, these boots were made for working. He gave me shoes to trudge on an endless expanse of tarry despair. What will be the heavier load? Life alone or witnessing the grief of my children? The leather, impenetrable, strong; the laces, so tight, double knotted. They’ll keep my feet on the ground when it all falls down.
