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Prudence hadn't taken her father's hat off since he died. A, once bright, yellow baseball cap which dwarfed her small head and figure, it read "Arctic Air Conditioning" in an arc across the top under which was a picture of an Eskimo working under the hood of a car.

He had died about a year ago of a brain tumor that went undetected until it was too late. Prudence mourned deeply until the day she found his hat on a pile of clothing in his closet, taken off the night before he died. Placing it on her own blonde head brought him closer to her. When she wore it, the town's people would comment on how much her eyes looked like his.

Her father had worn the hat every day since his last was retired, being too old and worn to wear any longer. He wore it while he worked at "Arctic Air", he wore it to the supermarket, and he wore it to his favorite fishing hole on the weekends. He was even wearing it the day he pulled little Bobby Stevens from the lake and saved him from drowning.

With the hat, Prudence was able to return to life as it was before her father had passed away. She worked hard everyday, and spent the evenings caring for her two year old son, Jared. She was even dating again, and thinking about marriage.

One night, as she was getting ready for bed, she took the hat off, and put it on her night stand near her bed, as she always did. She was found dead the next morning. The doctors said it was a brain tumor that had killed her.

After the funeral, her Aunt Margert visited her place to clean up a bit, and get some more clothes for Jared, whom she was now caring for. She saw the hat beside the bed and placed it on Jared's head saying, "Your mom was a great woman, Jared. Don't you forget her."