Free Goody One Shoe by Julie Frayn

anything out that she could trip on.
    The carpet was littered with clothes. She prodded a mound of
black material speckled with cat hair with the brass tip of the cane. She
snagged one of the garments and lifted it in the air.
    It was her father’s hoodie. She gasped, dropped the cane and
sat on the carpet. She gathered his favourite hoodie, the one with his alma
mater emblazoned on the back, into her arms and cradled it next to her cheek.
She inhaled and squeezed her eyes shut. That hoodie used to keep her warm at
night, but the remnants of his scent, British Sterling cologne and Irish Spring
soap, had been overtaken by her own cocoa butter body lotion and vanilla bean
deodorant. She’d tucked his things safely in the bottom of her closet hoping to
make the smell last forever. Even after it had disappeared, she couldn’t bring
herself to throw them away. It would be like burying him all over again.
    She turned to the cat. “Peg Leg, you naughty boy. Spent the
night digging in the closet, eh?” Maybe she should have put them up high and
out of reach of three-legged cats that can’t do vertical jumps. “His clothes
smell like cat litter. And something else.” She sniffed again, scratched at a
dried stain on the sleeve. Probably cat spit or snot. “Maybe I should wash
them.” She bit her lip and stroked the hoodie. If she did that, would every bit
of him be gone? Eliminated? He’d been eliminated once too often.
    She wagged a finger at Peg Leg. “You stay out of my closet,
young man.” He purred and ran his body against her stump. She sighed and rubbed
between his ears. It was impossible to be mad at him. He was the only one who
stayed with her, alive and in the flesh. He hadn’t meant any harm. And she and
the Lord knew the cat had no boundaries.
    She ran a lint roller over the clothes and folded them into
a neat pile. She tucked them on the top shelf of the closet and went to find
caffeine.

    New members at the gym always stopped and stared. Billie was
so over it. She used to look away, blush, explain her circumstance so they’d
stop looking at her. Now they could just flap in the confused wind. Maybe they
weren’t confused. Perhaps they were totally freaked out. Whatever. They weren’t
the first. And they wouldn’t be the last.
    She wiped sweat from her brow before it dripped into her
eyes. Her reward for marathon gym sessions was the saline trail of her own
exertion that dangled from her chin before dropping into her cleavage to tickle
her breasts. The puddles of perspiration that soaked her underarms and dampened
her crotch. Sweat was her gold medal in long-distance running. Proof that her
heart still beat. But getting that salty liquid in her eyes burned like
hellfire. The one time she wore a headband to prevent it, the regulars teased
her about listening to Olivia Newton John and doing the Jane Fonda workout. The
vague eighties references barely registered. She knew what they were talking
about, but she was only a baby in that decade. Far more involved with Rainbow
Brite and Teddy Ruxpin than leotards and aerobics.
    It was oddly comforting to be chided, as if she were one of
the gang. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt part of a group. She
secreted her pleasure at being teased for something other than missing a foot,
for being stared at for wearing a headband instead of a running blade. At least
she had control over her wardrobe. Though she never wore the headband again.
Even gentle teasing from people that had grown accustomed to her presence shone
too bright a spotlight on her. She’d rather be as invisible as possible in
baggy, grey athletic gear, her hair in a ponytail high and wrapped into a bun
so it didn’t bounce between her shoulder blades. Sweat-soaked hair became as
sharp as a leather whip at seven miles per hour.
    Her shoulders ached through the run, her back tight. She
almost didn’t bother. But it was Tuesday, and that meant she went to the gym
before facing the subway,