Hats

I used to love hats and wore them to mass in the first blush of Catholic conversion. On Easter Sunday I showed up in my new maternity dress with matching beige cloche only to see it’s twin perched on the head of an elderly woman sitting to my right. After mass, I went straight home and threw it in the trash.

We were newlyweds, married first by a Baptist preacher in the home of Ms. Hamm, the church pianist. Later we took our vows before the Virgin Mary, John in his dress blues and me swathed in baby blue polished cotton, trying to hide my huge belly. I felt pious as I laid the cluster of white daisies at Mary’s feet. Later I wished I had kept them for a souvenir.

Later still it didn’t matter anymore. A second baby, a disorganized move to California. A shabby apartment two miles from my in-laws, transplants from Brooklyn who talked too loud and too much. We quit going to mass, quit talking to each other, quit planning for the future. Within six months it was all over and I never, ever wore hats again.