The Yellow Cardigan

The doorbell didn’t ring. It shrieked. It was one of those old, wired buzzers that sounded like an electrical fire waiting to happen, the kind that made your teeth hurt.

Mara dropped her toast. Peanut butter side down, naturally. It was Tuesday, and Tuesday was rapidly becoming a day for small, accumulating failures.

She wiped her hands on her jeans and went to the door. Through the peephole, the hallway was empty. Just the peeling beige wallpaper and the flickering fluorescent light that the landlord promised to fix three months ago.

She opened the door.

The box sat on the mat. No brown paper, no string. Just a beat-up cardboard square, Amazon-branded, the tape peeling at the corner like a hangnail. It looked heavy. It looked like it was judging her.

Mara kicked it. A dull thud. The weight didn't slide; it rolled. Clunk.

She checked the label. Her name, spelled correctly. Her address, Unit 4B. The return address was a P.O. box in Poughkeepsie. She didn’t know anyone in Poughkeepsie. It sounded like a made-up town, the kind people in sitcoms move to when the writers run out of ideas.

She dragged it inside. It was dense, heavier than books, heavier than kitchenware. She shoved it across the laminate floor with her foot until it hit the leg of the coffee table.

She went to the kitchen drawer, the junk one that held batteries and takeout menus, and fished out a dull paring knife. She sat cross-legged on the floor.

Zip. The tape gave way.

Packing peanuts drifted out. Styrofoam snow. They clung to her sleeves, static-charged and impossible to shake. Mara dug her hands in, her fingers brushing against something hard and cold.

She pulled. The object resisted. She used both hands, bracing her foot against the box, and hauled it out.

A rock.

Not a crystal. Not some healing quartz nonsense from a metaphysical shop. A jagged, ugly, grey chunk of granite. Roadside gravel, but massive. About the size of a honeydew melon. It was uneven, with a sharp protrusion on one side and a flat, sheared face on the other. It smelled like wet driveway and old dust.

"Okay," Mara said. To nobody. "A rock."

She reached out to brush a stray peanut off the surface. That’s when she saw it. The detail that made the air leave the room. The thing that made her mouth taste like copper.

The rock was wearing a sweater.

A yellow cardigan. Mustard yellow. Hand-knitted.

Mara froze. Her hand hovered over the wool. She knew that stitch. It was a simple garter stitch, but she’d dropped a loop on the left side, creating a tiny, unintentional eyelet. She saw the eyelet now, stretched tight over a jagged spur of stone.

She knew the cheap acrylic blend because she’d bought it with a 40% off coupon at a craft store that was going out of business. She knew the mismatched wooden buttons—one dark oak, one cherry—because she’d lost the packet and scavenged them from an old trench coat she found at Goodwill.

She made that cardigan. Six years ago.

For a hamster.

Sir Ian McKellen. David’s hamster.

The memory hit her like a physical blow. The small, cramped apartment they’d shared on 4th Street. The smell of cedar shavings. David, sprawled on the couch, laughing at her while she clicked the knitting needles together.

"He doesn't need clothes, Mara. He has fur. That is the point of being a hamster."

"He gets cold," she had argued. "Look at him shiver."

"He shivers because he has the metabolism of a hummingbird on meth," David had said, but he’d let her put the cardigan on the rodent anyway. Sir Ian had looked ridiculous and dignified, sitting in David’s palm, chewing on a sunflower seed while wearing a bespoke yellow sweater.

David. The ex.

The one she hadn't spoken to since the night the cops came. The night the screaming match got too loud, and the neighbor, Mrs. Gable, decided she’d had enough. The night David threw the toaster. Not at her, but near her. Near enough that the cord whipped her arm.

He was supposed to be in Ohio. His sister had sent a text two years ago saying he was in a facility near Cleveland, getting help. Getting "stabilized."

Mara stared at the rock.

The cardigan was stretched tight. The granite had a hump, a sort of hunchback shape, and the wool strained over it. The sleeves, tiny tubes meant for little rodent arms, flapped uselessly against the stone sides.

It looked pathetic. It looked monstrous. Like a pet rock that had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Mara checked the box again. She dumped the peanuts onto the rug. No note. No invoice. Just the white foam, sticking to her arms like static ghosts.

She looked back at the rock. It sat there. Existing. The sweater gave it a weird posture. Shoulders slumped. Defeated.

It was a portrait. A perfect, faceless portrait of David sitting on the edge of the bed the morning after a fight, refusing to say he was sorry, refusing to look at her. Just a heavy, silent lump in the room.

She stood up. Water. She needed water. She went to the sink, drank from the tap, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her hands were shaking. Just a tremor, barely visible, but she could feel the vibration in her bones.

Why send this? Was it a threat? A joke? Here is a rock, Mara. It is as hard-headed as I was.

She walked back to the living room. The rock hadn't moved. Obviously.

But the smell had changed.

It wasn't just dust anymore. It was damp wool. Wet dog. The smell of that night Sir Ian escaped into the rain and they spent hours crawling through the mud in the backyard, screaming at each other in whispers so the landlord wouldn't hear.

"You left the cage open!"

"I didn't touch the damn cage, David!"

The smell was thick, cloying. It filled the living room, masking the scent of the burnt toast.

She crouched down. Don't touch it, a voice in her head said. Call the police. Call the bomb squad. Call a priest.

She touched it.

The stone was freezing. Ice cold. The kind of cold that burns.

But the wool... the wool wasn’t.

The wool was hot. Fever-hot. Radiating heat like a toaster oven after the coils have gone dark. It felt biological. It felt like a forehead burning up with the flu.

Mara scrambled back, crab-walking backwards until her heels slipped on the laminate. She hit the sofa hard.

"David?" she whispered.

Silence. Just the grey lump in the yellow wool, sitting amidst the styrofoam snow.

Then, a sound. Faint. Wet. Like a boot pulling out of deep mud.

Lub-dub.

Mara stopped breathing.

Lub-dub.

The wool moved. It expanded. It contracted. A millimeter of breath against the unyielding stone. The buttons strained against their threads. The cheap acrylic yarn groaned.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She screamed. It was a short, sharp yelp, involuntary and embarrassing. She ripped the phone out of her jeans.

Unknown Number.

In a movie, this is when you throw the phone out the window. In a movie, this is when you grab your keys and run until your lungs burn. But Mara didn't run. She stared at the screen, her thumb hovering. Curiosity is a terrible survival instinct, but it was the only one she had left.

She swiped right. She put the phone to her ear. She didn't say anything.

"It fit," a voice said.

It was a woman’s voice. Raspy. Tired. The voice of someone who has worked a double shift at a diner that serves bad coffee.

"Who is this?" Mara asked. Her voice sounded thin, reedy.

"We tried the cat first," the woman continued, ignoring the question. "But the cat scratched. Tore the hell out of the upholstery. Then we tried the doll, but it hung loose. Didn't look right. No gravitas. But the rock... the rock held it nicely."

"Where is David?" Mara’s voice cracked. She looked at the rock. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

"That's him, sweetie." The woman sounded bored. Checking a box on a clipboard. "He wouldn't shut up about the hamster. Or the sweater. Or you. Especially you. He was so hard. So stubborn. We figured, hey, let's make the outside match the inside. Literalism is very in this season."

"This isn't funny," Mara said. Tears were pricking her eyes now—hot, angry tears. "This is sick."

"Ain't a joke," the woman said. She coughed, a wet, rattling hack away from the receiver. "He’s heavy. We didn't wanna pay for shipping, honestly. Those flat-rate boxes have weight limits. But he insisted. Said you'd know what to do with the burden. Said you were used to carrying him."

Mara felt a chill go down her spine that had nothing to do with the drafty apartment. "I don't—"

"Look," the woman interrupted. "I got three other deliveries to make. Just... keep him wet, okay? Granite cracks if it dries out too much. You gotta moisturize."

"Wait—"

"And don't put him in direct sunlight. He gets cranky."

Click.

The line went dead.

Mara stared at the phone. The screen went black. She saw her own reflection in the glass—wide eyes, pale skin, messy hair.

She looked at the rock.

The chest—the stone chest—heaved. A slow, grinding inhale. The wooden buttons groaned again. It was a rhythmic, hypnotic movement. It was the rhythm of sleep apnea. The rhythm of David sleeping on the couch after a bender.

She could run. She could leave the apartment, get in her car, and drive until she hit an ocean. She could leave the rock here to dry out and crack.

She looked at the front door.

Then she looked at the kitchen.

She sighed. A long, ugly, ragged sound that scraped her throat.

"God damn it, David," she whispered.

She walked to the kitchen counter. She grabbed the plastic spray bottle she used for the Boston ferns. She went to the sink and filled it with tepid tap water.

She walked back to the living room. She stood over him.

The rock looked small from this angle. Vulnerable, despite being a piece of literal granite. The yellow sweater was fuzzy and bright against the drab floor.

"You," she said to the granite, "are a piece of work."

She squeezed the trigger.

Spst. Spst.

A fine mist settled over the stone. The grey turned black, slick and shiny.

The heartbeat slowed. The frantic heat coming off the wool cooled down, settling into a steady, warm hum. The tension in the sweater seemed to ease, as if the rock had exhaled.

Mara sat on the floor, the spray bottle in her lap. She watched the rock breathe. She watched the water droplets bead on the stone surface and soak into the cheap yellow yarn.

She thought about the layout of her apartment. The bookshelf was too flimsy. The coffee table was too cluttered. But the window sill... the window sill got good afternoon shade.

She poked the rock with her finger. It was still hard. Still stone. But it was warm.

"I'm not knitting you a hat," she told him.

The rock said nothing. It just sat there, wet and heavy.

Mara leaned back against the sofa and closed her eyes, listening to the lub-dub, lub-dub of the granite heart. She wondered if she had any tiny hangers. She wondered if Amazon sold miniature humidifiers.

She wondered if she should call his sister in Ohio, but decided against it. What would she say? 'David is here. He’s a rock. He’s wearing Sir Ian’s sweater.'

No. This was hers to deal with. Just like the credit card debt he left. Just like the hole in the drywall she’d patched over.

She looked at the rock again.

"At least you're quiet now," she muttered.

She gave him one more spritz for good measure.