Threads of Her

Some people see ghosts in mirrors or dreams. I found mine in a thrift store jacket with a note in the pocket that said, “Don’t forget to eat, dummy.”

It was her.

Not in handwriting, exactly. Not in scent or fabric. But in voice. In that unmistakable, maddening, beloved tone only a sister could wield like both a whip and a hug.

And just like that, I started chasing her through the pockets of strangers.

The first note was tucked inside the pocket of a corduroy jacket at a thrift store on Route 6. Brown. Lined in orange silk. The kind of jacket you wouldn’t wear unless you were trying to look like someone else entirely.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just killing time between errands. Wandering aisles of forgotten lives, fingers brushing fabrics like rosary beads, muttering silent prayers for someone to surprise me.

And someone did.

I almost didn’t try the jacket on. It smelled like old attics and mothballs and the 70s. But the lining was soft, and the weight of it made me feel held in a way that startled me. When I slipped my hand into the pocket, my fingers brushed paper.

I pulled it out, expecting a receipt. Maybe a grocery list or a name. Instead, it read:

“Don’t forget to eat, dummy. You get mean when your blood sugar crashes.”

I froze. My stomach flipped. Because that was exactly the kind of thing my sister used to say. And she always said dummy with love. Like it was our private code for “I see you. Even when you don’t see yourself.”

Theresa had been gone a year. Breast cancer. Fast and cruel. One minute we were arguing over which fries were better (crinkle-cut or waffle) and the next, she was a ghost that only visited in dreams and songs on the radio.

The handwriting wasn’t hers—not exactly. A little more slanted. Neater. But it was close enough to freeze time for just a breath.

I bought the jacket.

The cashier looked at me funny when I didn’t take it off at checkout. Just nodded and stuffed the hanger into the donation bin behind her.

That night, I sat on my bed, jacket draped around my shoulders, the note between my fingers like a relic. I tried to reason it out—some thrift store employee leaving quirky notes, maybe. Or a coincidence. The universe winking in my direction.

But I knew better. Theresa and I had always said we’d haunt each other. We just never decided how.

The second note came two weeks later.

This time, it was in a vintage purse I bought half as a joke. Olive green with brass hardware and a floral lining that reminded me of our grandmother’s couch.

The note was folded tight and tucked into a secret zippered pocket I didn’t even know was there.

“He’s not good enough for you. Neither was the last one.”

I stared at it so long, my tea went cold.

She would’ve said that. Hell, she did say that, back when I was dating Mark and pretending I wasn’t bored out of my mind. She said I was shrinking to fit in his world and she didn’t like watching it happen. Said I was meant for magic, not middle management in someone else’s mediocre story.

I hadn't heard her voice in my head like that in months.

I started haunting thrift stores the way some people haunt old lovers’ social media. Searching. Chasing. Humming with quiet desperation.

Each item I bought held a new note.

A sweater with frayed cuffs carried:

“You used to love painting. Why’d you stop?”

A scarf tucked with:

“You are allowed to be angry. Especially at me.”

And once, in a pair of absurdly high platform boots:

“You always liked being taller than the room.”

They weren’t just random platitudes. They were hers. Her bite. Her humor. Her ache. Each message dug into something only she could’ve known. Stuff I hadn’t said aloud. Things I’d buried so deep I forgot where the bones were.

My therapist said it was grief finding creative outlets. I nodded and lied and said I agreed.

But deep down, I knew better.

I started leaving notes back.

I tucked them into donation piles, slipped them between pages of donated books.

“I miss you. Even the way you snored.”

“I’m scared of forgetting your laugh.”

“I still don’t know how to be the sister of a ghost.”

And once:

“I don’t want to be okay if it means letting you go.”

I donated that one with a windbreaker that smelled like chlorine and childhood.

Weeks passed. The notes stopped.

I told myself it was done. Maybe she’d said all she needed. Maybe I’d imagined the whole thing. It wouldn’t be the worst coping mechanism I’d ever used.

Then, last Tuesday, I bought a pair of gloves I absolutely did not need.

Folded into the finger of the right glove was a note so tiny it was barely there.

It said:

“You’re getting warmer.”

I laughed. I cried. I wore the gloves all day even though it was 83 degrees out.

Some days, I feel like I’m piecing her back together from scraps. Reconstructing my sister through dollar-bin relics and silk linings. Like a mosaic built from broken mirrors.

But I’ve realized something.

Theresa isn’t the one who’s haunting me.

I’m the one haunting her.

In every memory. Every thrift store. Every jacket she never got to wear. I am the ghost in her story now. The one who lived.

And if that means I have to search a thousand pockets to hear from her again, I will.

Because love, real love, doesn’t vanish.

It just changes forms.

And some of them wear corduroy.