I found the left one on the seat and reached for the right and it was not there. Not in the footwell, not under the seat, not in the box of the truck where I checked twice with a flashlight because losing it seemed impossible in the space of one short drive.
Gone somewhere between the truck and the shed. Dropped in the snow, most likely, where it would surface brown and stiff in the spring runoff, too late to matter.
The one I had was good. Better than good — it was the broken-in one, the leather gone dark and soft across the palm, shaped now to the exact cup of my hand, the seams holding, the wool cuff still whole. A right glove that had done a winter of work and had a winter or two left.
Useless alone. A glove is only ever half of a thing. You cannot buy the mate; they do not sell them singly, and a new right would not match this left, would sit stiff and pale against it, an obvious stranger.
But I did not throw it out. You keep the survivor. Someday I will lose the mate to another pair and be left holding a left, and if the leather is close and the size is right, the two orphans will make a working pair, mismatched, each remembering a different hand.
It went on the sill by the door, curled a little, still holding the shape of a grip. Warm to the touch for a while, from the truck, and then not.