Where are you Now?

The jacket was black leather and short, double breasted, and had about four buttons going down the front just like mine. I put it on and departed for Cleveland, Ohio from Los Angeles. I had wanted to visit California with my fiance for my Spring Break. Coincidentally, there in LA was a woman with whom he was not too close to, his aunt. She had a nice roomy house and she and her husband had a daughter my age. We would stay in her house there together and I would actually have my very own room, the room that belonged to her daughter. Since her daughter was a little bit older, maybe a couple years at most, than I, she was no longer at home but lived independently. I was nervous: I had never met his aunt, and i wanted to look good for her. I wore my leather jacket my sister had bought for me because I felt it made me look sophisticated. The jacket was a small, and fit perfect, but as I looked later at my jacket once the trip was over, it felt a little loose. I had not lost weight. So, i put it back in my closet to examine another day. There is something worthy of note that I discovered during this trip. There were numbers tattooed on my future aunt's arm. I thought how strange and decided not to ask why. I had a bad feeling that she had experienced the horrors of the Holocaust. I knew for certain that she was my future husband's father's sister, and therefore I assumed she had grown up with her brother. I did not know whether he was older or younger than my future aunt, though. You will note I am not using anybody's proper name. That is because much if not most of this story is true, and I would like to protect my people's privacy, if possible. Getting back to the jacket, my piece de resistance, so to speak: I loved it, but I was sure the jacket in the closet was not mine, not the one I took to LA. It was too big. Then I recalled that there was one leather jacket, a skirt, and another leather jacket on the other side of the cute little grey skirt in the closet in LA. Then I realized I must have grabbed the cousin's jacket instead of mine. I decided to wait. I did not want to disturb anyone or be accused of anything, so I turned a blind eye. I remember arguing with my fiance. I was sure his aunt was a Holocaust survivor. I was sure also that I had accidentally taken his cousin's jacket. Then, I said it. I asked him, out loud, whether he knew his aunt had been a survivor. That is what caused us to fight. He had not known. I was nosey. I was not even Jewish, so how would I know? I was a "goy." Hurt and upset, I asked my fiance's father where he was born. I got my answer: he was born in Europe and yes he and his sister survived the Holocaust. There in Hungary, she had been tattoed. I felt like a piece of excrement. I had gotten the information I sought, but at what cost? Bringing up all of that pain, just because I wanted to be right, was actually all wrong. I thought I was going to provide closure or something. Really though, it was only closure for me. For my fiance's family, the discovery opened up old wounds. Questions arose: Why does she need to know? How did she know and not I? I am her nephew, I am his son, and he never thought to tell me. I am not a child. I am a grown man, about to marry someone whom I love, and this is the message I am sent: I know nothing. I thought I knew my father, but maybe I don't. He ignored me, neglected me. What am I to do with this knowledge now? I wish she wouldn't have been so nosey. It is none of her business. She is not blood-related. These thoughts all were part of my fiance's argument. I felt awful. The argument, the tattoo, and the confusion were all on me. Now I had stolen a jacket, even though it was simply a mistake in my mind, the family just saw it as another smudge on my character. It was one of my many flaws. How we got through this great pain I will never understand, but we did. Anyway, back to the real interesting part. I told him about the jacket and he said for me to keep it and not to ask for my own jacket back. I would grow into it, he said. Yes, I would grow, mature, and one day bloom into the real woman who would wear the jacket with pride. I never met his cousin, but I still have her leather jacket if she wants it back. I kept it, and now twenty years later, it hangs in my own closet, in my house. I suppose it is mine now. I suppose it is just part of the story. It will remain a physical reminder of a stranger whom I never met, yet now feel I know so well. I wear it and think of her, in LA, in New York City, and wonder does she still have a leather jacket, size small? Does it fit her just right? Does she imagine me as I imagine her? Does she ever wonder about me? I really love her, though I do not know her name. I love her story because now it is my story also. We are like sisters from the other side. I pray maybe for forgiveness and also maybe for our friendship to blossom one day. When we do meet again, I will bring her a gift: the same leather jacket. It doesn't really mean a thing. It is only a jacket, until you know the story behind it, right?