Chapter 17 - THE YELLOW HAT
The hat remained in our kitchen closet for a year.
I asked twice whether Lily wanted it gone.
“No.”
“Do you want to wear it?”
“No.”
Then why keep it?
Children do not owe adults symbolic consistency.
At six, she used it in a school play.
A farmer.
She came home laughing.
I stared at the hat.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The worry face.”
I laughed.
She had turned an object of hiding into costume without asking my permission.
Good.
After the play, the hat lived in the dress-up box.
Pirate hat.
Wizard hat.
Picnic hat.
Eventually bent beyond recognition.
The thing I had treated like evidence became cardboard and felt again.
The severed braid remained with prosecutors until Vanessa’s appeals ended.
When returned, the victim advocate asked what we wanted.
Preserve.
Destroy.
Release.
I asked Lily.
She was nine.
“What braid?”
That answer surprised me.
“The one Aunt Vanessa cut.”
“Oh.”
She thought.
“Throw it away.”
We did.
No shadow box.
No memorial.
May you like
Hair grows.
Evidence had served its purpose.
