Aunt Elaine’s knobby hands clenched the two ends of the pink sweater’s neck and lifted it from the box on the table. Lenny stared at it. The sweater was ugly. Putting aside its color—which he thought Samantha might like, since, however much he argued with her, she bought pink pastel clothing, even forgiving the fashion industry for forcing that color on females, she had a five-year old child’s love of pink—the weave and cut of the sweater made it, to put it lightly, not wearable. The sweater appeared disproportionate, its sleeves of different lengths and the yarn frayed and unraveling, as if its creator had never seen the torso of a body and did not understand its dimensions. He couldn’t imagine why his aunt would buy the sweater for his girlfriend.

“Samantha is going to love it,” Lenny said, letting the mockery dissolve on his tongue. His aunt usually admired his sarcasm, claiming, in her high-pitched voice, that humor was the noblest virtue of a beast, and as a result, the greatest measure of a beast’s intelligence. But when it came to gifts, Lenny learned that her appreciation ended rather abruptly.

“I’m not too sure about that,” Aunt Elaine said. “But it’s not for her, kiddo. This here sweater’s for you.” She gave the sweater a shake and a few of the stray yarns fell to the floor. Lenny laughed. When he saw the quiet outrage light behind his aunt’s eyes, he tried to conceal his laughter with a cough, but he couldn’t restrain the laughter and erupted first from his nose and then his mouth. He turned away to calm himself. When he turned back around, his aunt shook the sweater with a grim look over her face, and he laughed again. He faced away from her three more times. The sweater was so pathetic that he was sure the humor would strike his aunt. There was no way she could not see it. But she remained stolid.

His eyes were tearing and his lips squeezed tightly into a thin line when he managed to regain control. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at your gift. It was just unexpected—I don’t usually wear pink, and I never wear sweaters. We live in California—when’s the last time the temperature dropped below seventy? But now that I look at it, it is a nice sweater. As I said, it’s just an unexpected gift is all, but it is beautiful. Where did you buy it?”

Aunt Elaine harrumphed. “I didn’t buy it, Lenny. I knitted it. I knitted it with these gnarly hands for my, once again, ungrateful nephew.” She bent her knuckles over the sweater for his inspection. Her arthritis had twisted her hands until they were a mere collection of knots and twisted fingers. The smile on Lenny’s lips died and he swallowed uncomfortable under her gaze. His aunt was the smartest person in his family, and his confidant. Although he would never admit it to anyone, least of all her, he very much valued her high opinion of him, and worried anytime he put that opinion at risk.

What made the situation worse was how much this reminded him of something that happened when he was younger. Before his twelfth birthday, Lenny had painstakingly written correspondences to all of his relatives describing which robot piece they should purchase for his birthday. He had studied the picture of the fully assembled robot and knew that once his collection was complete, he would be the envy of all of the kids in the neighborhood. Because he respected his aunt and trusted her implicitly, he had tasked her with buying the critical head and neck robot, which, once joined with the rest of the robotic army, would form a mighty, four-foot robot. When he later received a book from his aunt instead of the robot, he responded with off-color sarcastic remarks about his aunt and how little she understood children because she never had her own children. After that incident, she hadn’t spoken to him for six months. He later discovered that the book she purchased for his birthday was a first edition, signed copy of Alice in Wonderland, a gift that was too expensive and unappreciated by a twelve-year old, but something that, as he grew up, he treasured as one of his most valuable possession.

“Aunt Elaine,” Lenny said and stopped. He studied her with astonishment. He had watched her use her broken hands as a sympathetic weapon in the past. And that combined with the shoddy sweater, the awful color, and the dredging up of the memory of the book, he began to have a sneaking suspicion that she was setting him up: he looked to her for the punch line. He needed to figure this all out before she fell upon him. The old witch!

“No apologies are necessary,” his aunt said when Lenny didn’t finish his obvious thought. Lenny thought her response was a little hurried and his scrutiny of her intensified. “Let me make you some tea while you try it on. You may use my bathroom—I don’t want you dressing where any of my nosy neighbors will see you. And don’t wear that horrible orange t-shirt under the sweater. I want to see what my sweater looks like on you, but I don’t want to go blind. Now, go about you.”

His aunt left the sweater on the table and went to the kitchen. He heard her humming and the soft clink of a teapot lid. Lenny did not see her angle. His aunt gave him many strange gifts over the years, but all of them were interesting and feisty, like her. She taught him to appreciate uniqueness and quality over all other characteristics. While the sweater was certainly unique, its quality was so minimal that he knew she couldn’t be pleased with it. But he still couldn’t find the humor. He began doubting that there was a slant. Perhaps she really did knit the sweater and wanted her favorite nephew to have a product of her own hands. Lenny chuckled at the thought. There were two problems with it: he wasn’t her favorite nephew, perhaps her second or third favorite, and she never had pride in her manual abilities. She was too cultured and educated for such simple pastimes.

There was nothing for him to do but put the sweater on. At worst, he’d look the fool and make an old lady very happy with her little scheme. Lenny carried the sweater to the bathroom. When he used to visit his aunt’s house as a child, he loved the smell, a mixture of a light, fruity perfume and warm, clean soap. Over the last few years, her house had stopped smelling clean and fragrant, and started acquiring the smells of an old person. He couldn’t identify the different odors that contributed to this impression, but he likened it to a combination of moldy soap, mothballs, and bed pans. The stench in the bathroom was particularly strong.

He pulled off his t-shirt and slid the pink sweater over his head. He looked even more foolish than he expected. The sweater fell down past his waist and flared at its bottom. The left sleeve was noticeably longer than the right one, which did not reach his wrist. The rounded neck was the only section that was proportional and evenly knit. He bunched up his t-shirt into a ball and returned to the living room.

Aunt Elaine nodded when she saw him. “You look wonderful, Lenny. You don’t know how much joy you bring me by wearing that sweater.”

Lenny watched her reaction; sure that she would deliver the gag. When her reaction remained blissful as if the sweater really did give her great joy, Lenny sighed dramatically. “I give up,” he said. “I’m at the point where I’m beginning to think that senility has finally set in. If it has, my questioning probably won’t insult you. If not, I’m sure you’re going to explain this and we’ll have a good laugh.” Lenny plucked the front of the sweater and it fell back onto his chest. “What is up with this pink sweater?”

“Questioning my sanity, are you? You’re not the first to do so. But let me assure you that my wits are fully with me. Now my judgment, if you were to question that, for that I wouldn’t blame you.”

Lenny sat down on the couch. “Okay. Let me have it. No, first let me try to guess the answer. I think you have realized that your youth was wasted with intellectual pursuits—too many books and not enough time chasing the baser aspects of life. And now, in your late dotage, you discovered that you’ve always wanted to be a clothing designer. Not just any clothing designer, but a sweater designer. And as part of this demented dream, your relatives, particularly your poor, defenseless, fashion-challenged nephew, would model your clothing to enable the world to discover your fashion genius. I must be getting warm here.”

His aunt laughed, harder and louder than he had expected. “That’s the Lenny I remember. If only you knew, Lenny. If only you knew.” His aunt looked old when she spoke. She held a tea cup in her fist and Lenny noticed for the first time that she had not offered him tea. That was very unlike her. Usually, his aunt’s manners were impeccable. He looked at her and really saw her. The skin on her hand was translucent with veins standing out like blue worms sleeping under her skin. Her face was lined deeply and the skin was loose, barely glued to her bones. Her blonde hair, so luxurious when she was younger, had turned to old lady hay, curly and covering her head, and her stomach was large—rounded like a man who drank too much. She looked, for the first time to Lenny’s eyes, old.

“Stop looking at me like that,” his aunt said. “I know I’m a stodgy old lady, but what makes me different from all the other stodgy old ladies is that I know and understand and completely accept that I’m a stodgy old lady. I remember a time, and its getting fuzzier and less real every year, but there was a time when I wasn’t this way, you know. I used to be young and vibrant—don’t laugh, kiddo. It might happen to you one day.

“But somewhere down the road, something in me changed. I wish I could tell you when it was or what caused it, or, better yet, go back to that time and fix it, but my bones tell me it’s too late for me to change. But there are some things that I had to do. You will understand it one day. But now I’m tired, and these are too gloomy discussions for such a beautiful visit.”

Lenny smiled at his aunt. “You are not stodgy, Aunt Elaine. Perhaps a bit thick headed and misunderstood, and probably senile, but definitely not stodgy.” Lenny thought about asking his aunt about the sweater, but decided it was best to let it lie. He would wear it for her and then throw it in his closet, along with the other gifts he had received with no intention of ever wearing or using. He might drag it out when she visited him, but she rarely left her house these days that he doubted he would have much of an opportunity.

“Would you like more tea?” he asked.

“That would be wonderful. Lenny?”

“Yes, Aunt Elaine?”

“Do you think everything will turn out? What I’m trying to ask is: do you think I did the right thing?”

Lenny looked at her strangely. He didn’t know how to answer or what she was talking about. He felt a warm sensation in his chest and was overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness. He wasn’t sure why he was sad, but he thought it might have something to do with his aunt’s aging, or, more unexpectedly, something to do with the sweater. “I can’t say, but it’s too late to change it now,” Lenny said. It was not the reassuring statement he had planned, but he knew it for the truth.

Word count: 2,050

Words left: 47,950

Time: Too many hours (2+)

Caffeination: Vanilla Coke & Tall Mocha

Feeling: Discouraged and depressed.