Wet Leather

The day my father gave my sister and I the one shoulder forest green canvas bags with the leather buckled accents was the day it flash- flooded and we were caught unawares—a saddlebag to sling elegantly, pull past my elbow, up my arm, over my head like the ladies in glossy magazines I wanted to be. Sadly, that was also the day I couldn’t be a lady because I became a child of divorced parents and this bag was to hold my pajamas, toothpaste, elastic- banded underwear, between houses. I’m wearing the bag today of all days. It’s raining and reawakening the smell of scraped cowskin and stain the color of chamomile tea, and I’m still clutching wet leather to my chest like that day we named them “daddy bags.”