The Heirloom Raploch

Here’s another two-fer: The A to Z Challenge plus the Save-a-Word Saturday blog hops. Click on the links to learn more about them.

S-A-W word for today: Raploch – (noun) coarse, woolen cloth, made from the worst kind of wool, homespun and not dyed.

S-A-W theme: Weddings

AtoZ letter: R

The Heirloom Raploch

Stranger things have happened, so Starla didn’t say anything when Chandler gave her the raploch. It was old, more matted grey than luscious black, smelled of mothballs and was tattered in many places. She held it in one hand and stared at it, dreading the thought of putting such an old scarf against her skin.

“You can have it,” Chandler said, looking at Starla with his dark brown eyes that never quite landed on hers. “It was my grandmother’s.”

Tears moistened his eyes. Seeing this, Starla’s heart began to swell and sway inside of her in tune with the melody that resounded in its chambers. Forgetting about the moldy smell, the ratty look and the rough feel of its coarse material, she took it in both hands and held it just under her chin. “Chandler, I’ll keep this raploch forever.”

His deep brown face shaded darker with embarrassment, a protective reflex so as not to cry. Starla looked away out of respect. He gingerly lifted the raploch from Starla’s hands and wrapped it around her shoulders. “It was her mother’s, and I think her mother’s before that. I have no sisters… so it’s been mine since I was ten.”

Starla never met Chandler’s grandmother, since she died one week ago, the week Chandler came to stay with an elderly cousin, the week when Starla learned how his grandmother had been the most important person in his life.

And now Chandler gave Starla the raploch, his heirloom. There was no doubt that she would sleep with it every night until Chandler was officially hers. Imagining their wedding was easier now that she had a part of him with her.