Blue Umbrella

I can't say where I bought it. Or with who. Or how long ago. Or why it never served its purpose. I could... to all of that, but I won't. Not now, anyway. It's too late and doesn't matter. It's my Rosebud, of sorts. I'm a sentimental person and things such as a cheap blue umbrella mean more to me than anyone knows. More to me than my car, or my house, maybe. It sits by my front door and is never used. When it rains, I grab another. A black one I don't have any feelings for. Yet, if it is misplaced, or taken by someone else, I search for it and I don't stop until I find it. Like Liam Neeson in those movies.

It was lost a few months ago. My mother borrowed it. She left it at work I found out after I woke her up and questioned her about its whereabouts. What umbrella, she groused. My blue one! I shouted. I drove twelve miles to her workplace and knocked on the door of the rest home until someone finally answered. It's 3am, the janitor complained. Time is not of more value than my blue umbrella, I replied. She looked as though she would call the police. Like I was a maniac. But she let me in because I told her who my mom was and she thought it would be easier than calling the police. 

I found it in Doris's room. Doris was a clepto, I could see in her watery, shifty, bug eyes. She had it on her nightstand next to a framed autographed photo of Roy Clark from Hee-Haw. She looked scared when I came in, but when she realized I was not a threat she cried out, It's just a darn umbrella for Pete's sake! She said something about waking her up in the middle of the night and I turned to her and fired back, It's just sleep, Doris. Sleep when you're dead for Pete's sake! 

A few weeks later my son took it to school. He came home and I was waiting for him on the porch. He looked as though he thought I reviewed his internet search history on my laptop. When I grabbed his book-bag and pulled it out and made sure it was okay, he breathed a sigh of relief. I told him about the black one and the one with the duck head handle like a pimp speaks of hoes. I told him never to take the blue one again and when he asked why, I said, Because. Nothing more. 

Sometimes at night I sit with it on the porch; I open and twirl it like I am Gene Kelly, or like I would have if it kept raining that one time. I close it up and push the button and shoot it and remember the sound of her laughter. It doesn't have a name. I laugh reminiscing with the blue umbrella. I open it inside sometimes, despite superstition. I've already had my share of bad luck. What's a little more?

You know, I never once have taken it out into the rain. And I don't know that I ever will. When it rained that time, down there, I bought it, happily. But before I opened it, the rain stopped. I only wanted to hold it for her as we walked. To open it and keep her dry, and smiling a little while longer. That blue umbrella is all I have left. We don't think at times what everyday things might become one day. What memories and significance they might serve and hold. I'm just sentimental of such inanimate things that people become when they're gone.