Dead Man's Chair

My older sister, who turned out not to be a kindred spirit, was still a human of wonder to me. Sometimes it was something she would wear. It might be a sweater, just a little out of the ordinary. But all together, magic.

She arrived in New York City a few years before I did and got her master’s before going to work at Random House in public relations. She became an author and hung out with the literati crowd. She’d throw in a word that I would’ve had to pause mid-sentence to find—one that sounded effortless coming from her, but wasn’t.

Words. clothing. I was always in awe.

When my father came to New York City for business, he would summon the two of us to his pied-à-terre for a meeting to assess whether we were functioning well enough for him not to worry when he left. My sister always showed up wearing an old pair of shoes with a hole in the bottom. Somehow, she’d position herself just right so the hole showed to his gaze. Inevitably, he’d say, “You can’t walk around, Cheryl, with holes in your shoes,” and she’d look at him sweetly and say, “Daddy, I’m so sorry. Things are just so expensive in New York for a struggling writer.”

Me? I would wear my best outfit and exaggerate how well I was doing. There was no way I was going to look like I needed anything from him. She always left with an extra hundred-dollar bill, which in the ’70s was a lot of money, for a new pair of shoes. Now my father was a smart man with a laser sharp memory. But it was the same every time. Me? I left with my pride.

One evening, Cheryl and I met for dinner, and she showed up in some bohemian outfit that I thought was truly amazing. I had no idea where she came up with each piece, but it was the coat that was the stand out. It looked like a man’s coat. Herringbone. Gray. Sort of worn, and oversized, with the sleeves rolled up like it was four sizes too big. It came down maybe six inches below her knees. Straight cut. But it looked fantastic, especially with the scarf she had on.

“Where did you get that? Amazing coat.”

“In my apartment when I moved in,” she said. “It was hanging in the closet of my new apartment. You know, the rent-controlled one I got after the guy who lived there for 50 years died? It’s so cool, it’s got a working fireplace and an entire brick wall in the living room. When I opened the closet in the bedroom, it was just hanging there. It’s the dead man’s coat, and I love it.”

I looked at her incredulously. “You’re wearing a dead man’s coat?” I asked. “I can’t believe you’re doing that.”

“Why?” she said. “He doesn’t need it.”

I thought about that dead man’s coat often over the last fifty years. I’m not sure what I would’ve done with it, but I know I wouldn’t have worn it. I think there’s something disrespectful about it, but at the same time, there wasn’t. And I really liked it. I even went to Bloomingdale’s and tried on some men’s coats and rolled up the sleeves. But it wasn’t the same.

My sister passed away almost ten years ago.

I moved five years ago to a small red cottage on the coast of Maine, which I love. It’s the kind of life I never knew I wanted. I’m three years into a garden that gives me more joy than I thought possible, and I too have become somewhat bohemian. Good bye Valentino and Ralph Lauren, hello this and that.

My daughter inherited my sister’s sense of style, although she doesn’t buy used clothing. But she knows how to put herself together in ways that would never have occurred to me. When it comes to furnishing her apartments though, she buys things off Facebook Marketplace. And when she moved from New York to Washington, D.C., she sold most of it for more than she paid. “And the rich get richer,” I always say.

I needed a few things for the cottage, and I decided to look on Facebook Marketplace. That’s when I came across it, the green leather swivel rocker. It was advertised for $30, and the listing said it was from the basement of their father’s home, which they were dismantling.

I drove yesterday in the pouring rain 1 1/2 hours with my dog to get it.

The house looked like something out of that TV show Hoarders. The son was about my age. We climbed down to the basement, and for a second, I wasn’t sure anyone would ever see me again. And there it was, across the room. I realized right away that it wasn’t exactly leather. Vinyl, maybe. I thought maybe I should just leave it and walk away. But it had been a long drive. I figured I’d just see how it looked once I got it home.

My housekeeper came this morning and helped me move it inside. She said if I didn’t want it, she’d pay me double. Then we turned it over, and taped to the bottom was the original receipt from Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company in North Carolina. It listed the chair at $8, plus freight. Two front springs added at $1.30 apiece. The paper warned not to destroy it.

I’ve been sitting in the dead man’s chair ever since she left.

Now I’m sitting across from it, writing this, and I just took a picture of it to post.

From my sister’s dead man’s coat in 1975 to this dead man’s chair, fifty years later, I can’t help but wonder about the life he lived. Whether his wife hated the chair and made him put it in the basement. Whether he sat in it and hoped for a future bigger than he could reach, judging from the house he lived in, according to his son, for the past seventy years.

I am so grateful for this chair. I am so grateful for my memory, and that I can tie it all up in pretty bows to tell the story of so many lives, and how we are all, somehow, interwoven.

I hope this chair lasts another fifty years.

It’s pretty squeaky.

Maybe I’ll work on that.