A Hat for Hestia

The only thing of value Hestia Ione Brightly’s mother ever gave her was her name.

“There’s power in a name,” Hestia murmured to herself as she stood alone on the sidewalk in the dead of night, gazing up at the tattered Jessop Family Hats sign perched above the corner shop.

Her mother didn’t teach her that though; Arthur, June, and Margot Jessop did. Rather, her childhood was marked by a rambling carelessness and neglect that cast a shadow over her mother’s intentions to love her. Even so, in the moments when she lay on the wet pavement taking her final breaths, she imagined her mother’s face, with its upturned nose, ruddy cheeks, and almond eyes. The reconciliation she secretly craved for over a decade was no longer an option.

Hestia leaned through the shop’s display window to smooth over a peacock feather that had gone askew on a wide, flat brim hat from this summer’s collection. Her hand, with its translucent shimmer, did not have great effect but just enough momentum to set the feather to rights. She drifted back to get a final look of the assortment of hats, noticing one of her student’s designs on display. Margot must be using it as promotion for their new Saturday millinery classes.

Hestia’s vision went foggy for a moment before the shop came back in to view.

Margot had impulsively changed the display with all new designs yesterday. Or was it last week? Hestia couldn’t tell how long it had been since the accident but she kept reliving it in hazy flashes of screams, metal, and asphalt. Then Margot’s face and her hand held tight. Strangled breaths and stretched, broken skin. A whisper in her ear: take courage, my heart.

Everything seemed a little tangled with no clear answers. So, she did the only thing that made sense and floated through the door of Jessop Family Hats.

The first time Hestia met the Jessops she had been a frightened 14-year-old. She had ducked into the shop to avoid her mother’s landlord, who was scurrying towards her down the street like a malformed rat with a vengeance. Despite being instantly enchanted by the colours, textures, and silhouettes of hundreds of hats, she couldn’t stop to appreciate the beauty. Hestia quickly hid behind a display table as the landlord busted through the entrance, causing a rude clatter to echo from the bell above the door.

“Where is she?” He wheezed.

A young woman behind the counter was stacking black and white striped hat boxes. “I’m sorry, sir, who?”

“The kid that just came in here.”

“Haven’t seen a kid in here today. Would you like to try some hats?! We just got these gorgeous fedoras in this week,” she said.

“No time, no time.” He rushed back out to continue his search.

Hestia remained crouched behind some particularly enthusiastic top hats when she heard a throat being cleared behind her and turned.

“Hiya! I think the coast is clear. I’m Margot, by the way.” She stuck her hand out and Hestia shook it limply. “I saw you run in, sweaty, eyes all wide and figured you didn’t want to be found. You can hide out here for a bit, if you’d like.”

“Thanks," Hestia said, taking off her backpack and admiring the shelves. She had never seen such luxury in her life.

“You can try them on,” Margot said with a crooked smile, pushing her shoulder-length blonde hair out of her face. “Here, I think this one would be wicked on you.” She plopped a black newsboy hat with braided roping around the brim on Hestia’s head and pushed her in front of a nearby mirror. “Cute, right?”

Hestia turned her head to each side. The wool was warm, hugged her head, and made her long red hair pop. Her eyes brightened and she stood a little taller. “I like it.”

“Well don’t over sell it!” Margot said, chuckling, causing Hestia to crack a hesitant grin.

After that Margot had her trying on all variety of hats: beret, bowler, boater, pillbox, pork pie, bucket, panama. Customers came and went. That afternoon was an endless parade of dreams, each hat revealing another one of a hundred different lives she wished she could escape to.

When Hestia was modeling a captain’s hat with crystal accents, a middle-aged couple approached from the back of the shop.

“I see you’ve been having some fun this afternoon, Margot,” the woman stated, drawing Margot close with an arm around her shoulder.

“Mom, dad, this is… wait, you never said. What do we call you then?”

“Hestia.”

“So lovely to meet you, Hestia. I’m June, and this is my husband, Arthur. Are you a friend of our daughter?”

Hestia was drawn to her serene demeanor. “Well–”

“Yup, we’re the greatest of friends,” Margot said and looped her arm through Hestia’s.

“That is a beautiful name – Hestia. Where does it come from?” Arthur asked, speaking up for the first time. Hestia imagined he was a man who always made his words count.

“My mom told me once it’s Greek.”

Hestia caught a thoughtful look flicker across June’s face as she observed her threadbare clothes hanging loosely on her skinny frame. “Would you like to join us for tea?” She invited.

Hestia looked at the three of them, not bothered by the offer but instead, for the first time, allowing herself a small sliver of hope. “I would like that very much.”

After flipping the close sign and locking the door, Hestia joined the Jessops for tea.

Now, hovering in the middle of the place she felt most at home, the memories washed over her. Hestia closed her eyes, almost tasting the cardamom from the chai tea June made for her that day. She found herself drawn to the shop after that, like a moth to a flame. That same year, when it was reported that her mother had disappeared for over a week, she was taken in as a ward of the province. She struggled with leaving her mother, the only family she had known. But when the Jessops’ appealed to take her in, it didn’t feel wrong. In fact, it felt perfect. 

Something beside the cash register caught the dim light from the street lamps and drew her attention. Drifting closer, Hestia recognized the goddess’ small bronze statue. Her chest heaved, its ghostly form vacillating indecisively. Resting on a stack of Greek mythology books, her namesakes’ statue, with its eternal flame, had a perfect view of the whole shop. This had to have been Arthur’s doing.

That first Christmas season with the Jessops, her and Margot had been in the studio behind the shop listening to cheesy songs about winter wonderlands, mocking up a nutcracker inspired chapeau, and drinking hot chocolate with mountains of marshmallows, when Arthur came in. Even with Christmas days away, as if he knew Hestia needed something to ground her after being separated from her previous life, he gifted her the statue. Hestia, the goddess of hearth, home and family to remind you, you will always have a place here, with us. No matter where you are from and no matter where you go. Hearing those words from Arthur only a few months after leaving her mother’s house meant everything.

She sensed Margot then. Floating through the wall that separated studio and shop as if it didn’t exist at all, Hestia saw the blonde head bent over one of her round wood hat blocks working on a new design. The table lamp served as the only light to illuminate her work.

“Damn it,” Margot hissed and sucked the tip of her finger in to her mouth before shaking out her hand.

Getting closer, Hestia could see tears streaking down Margot’s face as she bit her lip to stop its trembling. No, this wasn’t right. Margot was always laughing, smiling, joking.

“Why did you leave me?” Margot whispered into the darkness.

“I never wanted to go away,” she replied but Margot didn’t acknowledge her.

“I hate it. I hate it. I HATE it!”

In a burst of rage, Margot jolted out of her seat. Letting out an anguished cry, she threw the hat block across the room. Her heavy breathing punctuated the space between them. Then, almost as hastily, Margot ran and dropped to her knees to pick up the scattered fabric that had come loose from the block.

 “I didn’t mean it, Tia,” she said, using Hestia’s nickname, and wiped more tears from her cheeks.

“I know.”

“I’ll keep going, for both of us.”

Hestia and Margot had been the primary milliners at Jessop Family Hats for a few years. They were brought together by coincidence but Arthur and June often remarked that their bond was like a thread that would not break. Yet, Hestia felt like breaking as she watched Margot grieve.

“Even when you can’t see me, I’m with you. I–” She halted and moved to place her hand on Margot’s shoulder.

Margot stood and walked the half-finished hat back over to the table. She began fixing the hat’s sinamay base where the fabric had been damaged.

Before the accident, their dream was to grow the shop, fueled by Margot’s ambition to prove the value of their designs. She didn’t mind. She had only wanted a life worth living. Recently, Margot had decided to enter them in to the Vancouver International Millinery competition. They came up with a million ideas for their submission but hadn’t nailed it down yet.

"Oh, I’d move those feathers a little to the right,” Hestia said and she watched Margot manipulate the orange, red and yellow feathers in to an upward crescendo. She moved them slightly to the right.

Margot reached for a book beside where she was creating. Actually, Hestia noticed there were several books laid out before her all bookmarked in several places, and Margot was consulting them. For her design? The Odyssey was the next book that Margot picked up.

Take courage, my heart. Take courage, my heart. Take courage, my heart.

The phrase echoed in Hestia’s mind and she gripped her head as the force of memories flooded through her.

It was a Saturday and her and Margot were teaching their Millinery for Beginners class. They had started it last year to bring more of the community in to the shop.

“Okay, you were all brilliant today but time to pack up,” Margot said as she closed out the class.

Hestia noticed that Vivien was waiting at the door and her belly filled with unease. Vivien was an old school mate of Margot’s and used to attend their class until she decided to open a rival hat shop one town over, becoming persona non grata to Margot. Hestia didn’t want an argument and stepped forward to intercept Vivien before Margot could notice her.

“Now’s not a great time, Vivien. Here, let me walk you out,” she said, gesturing towards the front of the shop.

“No, thanks.” Viven dodged Hestia and made a beeline for Margot. “Did you write this?” She asked, waving her phone in Margot’s face.

Margot peered at the screen. “No.”

“But you must have said something!”

“I only told the truth when asked.”

Margot moved towards the front door, ushering them out and locking up behind her. They were closed for the rest of the day. Hestia wasn’t sure what was happening exactly but knew Margot would never act in spite, even if she could be impulsive. Out on the sidewalk in front of the shop, as Margot made to ignore her, Viven’s anger grew.

“People stopped coming to my shop. I know it was you! You told people I stole designs; you told them I wasn’t as good!” Viven’s face became scarlet as her voice rose, following them down the street.

Margot spun around. “I would never! Someone came in to the shop one day. They were doing a write up on millinery and specialty hats. They asked if we worked with other local designers. I only mentioned that you attended our classes. Anything else, the reporter assumed on her own account. We aren’t in high school anymore, Viv.”

“Come on Margot, lets go,” Hestia said while grabbing Margot’s hand.

Viven cut them off. As if the seconds stretched to minutes, Hestia saw Viven move to push Margot almost before it was happening and stepped in front of the forceful gesture. Hestia stumbled over the curb but was able to stay on her feet. She caught Margot’s eye and could see an apology forming.

“Well that was–”

A car, coming around the corner at top speed, crashed in to her body, shattering her hopes. Her bones crunched as she flew over the hood and down the trunk to land on the pavement outside Jessop Family Hats. A guttural scream filled the air around her. Margot.

She couldn’t feel anything until Margot’s face filled her world and she felt a strong tug on her hand.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Hestia. I’ve called an ambulance,” she said.

Everything melted around her until it was one big pile of pain and final echoes of a life well lived, in the end. She wondered if her mother would hear about the accident and feel regret. Those almond eyes, so much like her own, would fill with tenderness and she would want to be a family again. But Margot was the one there holding her hand.

“Remember Hestia, you are strong. ‘Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this’. Right? Stay with me.”

Hestia couldn’t stay with her but she could be brave. Her final breaths gurgled out of her in spurts as her lungs filled with blood. She squeezed Margot’s hand.

“L–love you,” she said and drifted away as her eyes slowly closed in death.

Hestia remembered. She looked down at Margot, currently working on what she suspected was the Jessop Family Hats submission to the Vancouver International Millinery competition. She tilted her head and love swarmed her spectral heart. The hat was an eternal flame. Bright, bold, and timeless. In honour of the goddess, of Hestia.

She crouched down to try and meet Margot’s weepy eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. I hope you know that I carry this place with me, forever, no matter where I go.”

“Tia?” Margot murmured.

“I’m with you,” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. Without you, or Arthur or June I wouldn’t have been me.”

Hestia’s voice was like a ripple deep within Margot’s soul. She couldn’t hear it out loud but she felt it.

“Thank you,” Margot said.

Hestia felt herself being pulled away. As Margot and the shop began to fade, she caught a glimpse of the Urn resting behind Margot on a shelf surrounded by half-finished hats. It read: Hestia Ione Jessop, 1994-2023, Daughter and Sister.