Clothing

He reached into the box and pulled out a bundle wrapped in tissue paper. Unwrapping it, he cupped the tiny white shoes in his palm. They were his old baby shoes. The first pair he’d ever worn. The leather soles still clean, but the toes scuffed almost through from crawling miles and miles across the floors of that old house.

He looked for a note or a letter inside the box, but there was nothing else. “I wonder why my mother sent us these old baby shoes.”

She placed his hand on her still flat stomach, smiled and whispered, “Guess.”