What happens in the video
“That’s my coat.” In an alterations shop, a woman in burgundy takes a gray coat from a rack. A woman in navy tells her, “Put your hand in the pocket,” repeating the request as they carry the coat toward a full-length mirror.
The customer insists she has checked both gray coats. They look exactly alike, and she believes the requested loop is missing from both. The woman in navy says she completed the alteration as requested. Near the end, she holds the coats side by side while the customer still insists they’re identical. The clip ends before either woman demonstrates what the loop does.
Continuation:
“Which hand did you use?” the tailor asked.
The customer, Ellen, looked down. “My right.”
“Try your left. The way your father does.”
Ellen slid her left hand into the pocket. Halfway down, her little finger caught on a narrow strip of lining. She turned the pocket inside out. There it was, a soft gray loop, stitched flat against the seam. It was almost invisible even when she knew where to look.
She had brought in her father’s coat after he lost his house keys for the third time. Since the stroke, he could manage a key with his left hand, but fishing it out of the bottom of a deep pocket was another matter. Ellen had asked for something he could clip it to.
“I pictured a big loop hanging down,” she said.
“He came in yesterday,” the tailor told her. “We tried one like that. His fingers kept catching when he reached for his gloves. He showed me where to put this one.”
Ellen looked up. “Dad came here on his own?”
“Took the number six bus. Had quite a lot to say about where they’ve moved the stop.”
That sounded so exactly like him that Ellen laughed. For the past six months she’d made appointments, collected prescriptions and answered questions people had actually put to him. Somewhere along the way she’d also started picking up his coat.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “You did ask me twice to put my hand in there.”
At home her father was standing in the hall with his keys ready. He shrugged into the coat, clipped them into place and gave the pocket a satisfied pat.
“Going somewhere?” Ellen asked.
“Hardware shop. Need a washer for the kitchen tap.”
She had already reached for her car keys. This time she put them down. “Want company?”
“If you like. Fetch your coat. The bus won’t wait for you.”
When they got back, Ellen stood one step below him while he found his key by touch. He opened the door on his first try. Then he held it for her, with the little flourish he used to give when she was a girl coming home from school.
“After you,” he said.
She went in first. He hung up his own coat.
