the girl in the yellow rain jacket

a short story

There was once a girl who wore a yellow rain jacket everywhere she went. Rain or shine, hot or cold, she did not go anywhere without her yellow rain jacket. She lived unmoored by shame and ridicule, both of which she received her fair share of. Every week, her father would beg her to take her yellow rain jacket off if only he could wash it - just one cycle, no more than an hour - yet she refused. Her father resorted to running the wash while she was asleep when the yellow rain jacket sat neatly folded by her bed. 

She didn’t always used to be this way her father explained to inquiring minds. She was gifted the jacket only three years ago, after five years of having no yellow rain jacket at all. Yet when all the wrapping paper had settled and the tags were removed, the yellow rain jacket never came off. 

Photo by Lucie Capkova on Unsplash

The girl had grown two sizes since then, yet the yellow rain jacket was bought by a mind well aware of the rapid growth of children, thus the yellow rain jacket still fit and likely would for some time. 

There was a hood attached to the yellow rain jacket, and at times, either because of rain or some other threat, the girl would zip up the jacket and tug the hood above her head. She did this most often when her father took her to school. She found herself succumbing to the urge to disappear within the yellow rain jacket, despite the color’s visibility. Her father noticed how the girl would zip up her yellow rain jacket to her waist and then to her chest and then to her neck as they approached the school’s entrance. He never commented, though he was always concerned. 

The yellow rain jacket had collected dust and holes and marks with the passage of time. There was that time she reached into the fireplace to toast her marshmallow and burned the left cuff of the jacket. Even then, her father had to rip the yellow rain jacket off her skin while she stared at the growing flame. There was that time when the wash instructions were cut out and a giant hole formed in the right seam. It was weeks before her father was able to sew it in the dim light of dawn. There was that time when a cruel schoolmate had begun a food fight in the cafeteria, and, despite the girl’s best efforts to dodge and evade the flying food, the yellow rain jacket was doused in syrup and pizza grease. Though her father tried his best to remove the stains, there still exists a large blob of slightly more-brown yellow that lives on the right shoulder of the yellow rain jacket. 

One day the girl’s father decided to get married to a woman that wasn’t her mother. This woman begged and pleaded with the girl to wear anything besides the yellow rain jacket, even buying her a yellow dress, minus the slightly more-brown yellow stain. The girl refused to try it on. The night before the wedding, the girl’s father - moved by the chidings of his soon-to-be-bride - hid the jacket from his daughter. She awoke panicked that her yellow rain jacket was not neatly folded next to her bed and her father informed her that the yellow dress is ready to be worn. With tear-stained cheeks and pursed lips, the little girl wore the yellow dress without the slighty more-brown yellow stain and walked down the aisle before the woman that wasn’t her mother. 

She returned to wearing the yellow rain jacket while the yellow dress sat untouched in her closet like most of the rest of her clothing. She began wearing the yellow rain jacket to sleep at which point her father couldn’t wash it nor mend it nor hide it from her ever again. She wore it to school, to bed, to the funeral of her great aunt Sue, and she kept growing and growing. Soon enough the yellow rain jacket was too small and no matter how hard she tried to stuff her arms in the sleeves and pull the zipper above her chest: she couldn’t. Her father thought this was a good time to move on yet the girl had worn the jacket through flames, the aftermath of a miserable wedding, and hundreds of hours of sleep, so there was no moving on to do.  

She found patches of yellow cloth from the local fabric store and cut open the seams on the armpits and hood. She attached the extra fabric to every place she could, building the yellow rain jacket wider and wider until it might fit her. She stitched and mended and sewed during the nights, wearing the unfinished yellow rain jacket in the daylight. Her father, though he thought her behavior regrettable, taught her to sew. He showed his daughter the places he had mended before: the seams that were sloppy yet functional, the stains that echoed out across the right shoulder, the various holes he had closed. She touched every one, noticing the textures of her childhood before adding yet another patch. 

Weeks went by. Everyday the yellow rain jacket grew just as the young girl did. 

One night, when she was sewing by candlelight, the young girl’s eyelids grew heavy. In the fog of semi-consciousness, she pierced herself with the sewing needle. Her blood soaked the yellow rain jacket before her tears fell from her face, diluting the blood to spread. Without the energy to continue, the young girl wrapped her bleeding finger in the yellow rain jacket as if a bandaid and fell asleep. 

The next day she woke, her finger and head gently throbbing. She unwrapped the yellow rain jacket from her hand and assessed the damage. The rain jacket’s repellent fabric was unstained by the blood and tears, though there was one spot on the inner left chest, where the blood had mysteriously soaked through. She brought this spot closer to her face, investigating a little hole that she hadn’t noticed before. The blood had found its way into that hole and outlined what appeared to be a fabric label. Curious, the young girl ripped open the hole even more to find a nylon-protected handwritten note that was sewn into the seam. The type was so tiny that she squinted to read: 

---

Sunshine, 

There are few words that I could say that would capture my love for you, so, instead, I’ve sewn them into this jacket. 

May this jacket hold and protect you when I can’t. 

May this jacket accompany you through the storms when I can’t.

May this jacket promise you warmth and respite when I can’t. 

May this jacket envelop you in safety when I can’t. 

May this jacket remind you of my boundless love when I can’t.  

You are my greatest gift, sunshine. 

I love you. 

~ Mom

---

She put the sewing kit away and discarded the blood-soaked needle. She laced her shoes and arranged her backpack. She wrapped herself in the yellow rain jacket as best she could before making her way to school. The zipper wasn’t working, the patches were half-sewn, and now there was a big gaping hole in her chest. She weathered the stares and hushed laughter throughout the school day, and wore her yellow rain jacket as proudly as ever. When the school day was over and the clouds overhead unleashed their tears, the girl stood outside in the rain. The yellow rain jacket no longer could repel the water that was soaking her head and her skin and the clothes underneath. She stood there, head angled toward the sky, and drank in every last drop. Kids around her huddled under umbrellas and hoods, racing to evade the rain, yet she stood calmly with arms outstretched. She unzipped what was left of the zipper, shrugged out of the sleeves, and let the yellow rain jacket drop from her shoulders.