I have finished my writing class, and while I'm not sad to be rid of Sam the Eagle/Yoda or the very depressing Linda, I'm a bit sad that I'll miss some of the other characters in class. I wish them free-flowing pens, smooth paper sails, and un-choppy sentences. Here is my last assignment. WARNING: it made my instructor tear up a bit. She had to ask for a tissue! Bonus points if you can tell where I got the names from!
Roadmap
By Jennifer McTavish
The sun is setting on another day at the lake. It’s quiet. The water is calm, the air is warm and the lightning bugs are starting to glow against the dark pine trees. Mosquitoes will be out soon. At the end of the pier, Fred sits very still like he always does letting Anne play and fidget with his hands. In all these years, Anne never learned to rest quietly like Fred does. He still amazes her.
Anne presses the finger tips of her right hand to his left, then rolls the rest of her hand down to line up their whole hands. Fred’s hands are a bit wider and his fingers a bit longer. He doesn’t wear any rings or jewelry beyond the plain band she slipped on his finger 48 years ago. The gold shines just as bright although it has a few scratches on it. When he smashed his hand while fixing the pier they were now sitting on, the ring saved his finger from being broken off. There’s a small scar on the inside of his knuckle as a reminder. Love saves.
She twirls his ring around marveling how it fits just the same. Other than some arthritis setting in to swell his knuckles, his hands are unaffected, a constant. Fred always had very tan hands compared to her pale ones. His big hands made hers feel dainty although she wore a size eight ring, bigger than all her friends.
“It’s a good fit,” Fred once told her early on in their relationship. They had known each other for over 50 years when you count their easy friendship along with their married life. I agree, Anne still thinks to herself.
Fred stares out across the lake. Anne can’t say what he’s looking at or what he’s thinking. She never could. “What are you thinking about?” Anne asks. “Nothing in particular,” Fred answers. If I didn’t know better, I would think that nothing is all he ever thinks about. Anne shakes her head and turns his hand over to study the back.
At 72, he still has strong carpenter’s hands, and there aren’t many liver spots or freckles dotting his hand. There is a small white line from a very old scar. His sister was teasing him and had locked him out of the house. Having a boy’s temper and a naughty big sister irked him enough to punch through the screen door. Fred and Jean still argue over who was at fault for the eight stitches that made that small white mark.
There is another scar, newer, that runs parallel to “the screen scar” from last summer when he had to pop out a window screen because he locked himself out of the house. Fred didn’t think that Anne knew about it at that time, but she observed him later putting the screen back with a bandaged hand. She never said anything. Still, she wonders if he put two and two together because he smiles whenever she brushes her finger over it.
Sighing, Anne flips his hand over. He lets her. Now, palm face up, Anne traces her finger across the heart line, the head line and the life line. When they were still dating, Fred took her to the county fair where Madame Regina, a so-called-psychic, read their palms for a dollar. It seemed extravagant at the time. “A man’s hands are a road map for his life,” Madame Regina told them. “You can see where he’s been and where he’s going to go.” Anne liked that idea, a roadmap.
Being a good, God-fearing, German Lutheran, Anne doesn’t put too much stake in what they had been learned from their palms. Then again, she can’t lie if you claimed she’s always been a bit hurt that he had the fate line and she didn’t. “You’re going to be famous one day,” Madame Regina told Fred. “Everyone will know you. Many people will come to you for advice.” Anne draws her mind back to the present and her finger down that crease on his hand. Why just today, didn’t both of our boys call to ask Fred’s advice? Fred always stops to say hello to someone when we go into town. Perhaps there is something to what that old fortune teller said.
The sun sinks low over the pine trees and Fred shifts slightly on the wooden bench. It’s the first time he moved since they sat down. His free arm reaches up behind her to give her shoulders a squeeze before he rests it on the back of the bench. Anne smiles and draws letters in Fred’s palm. She spells, “kiss me” on his hand. He laughs softly and brings her hand to his lips.
This reminds Anne of one of the first vacations they took to Florida when they were newlyweds. Since Fred is and has always been handy, Anne planned a visit to Thomas Edison’s winter estate in Florida during that trip. She thought Fred would like to see all the things he invented and built. The tour’s docent told stories about his inventions and the Edisons’ personal lives. When Thomas proposed to his wife, he was practically deaf due to a childhood injury so he asked her to marry him by tapping Morse Code on her knee. In honor of the Edisons’, Anne had drawn silent messages on Fred’s hands for over 40 years. He reads the words effortlessly.
Anne takes Fred’s hand in both of hers and holds them as the sun finishes setting. The stars have come out. The moon shines both in the sky and from its reflection on the lake. It’s about time to go in. Anne looks down at Fred’s hands. On his palm, she writes one more message for the night, “I love you.” Fred turns her hand over and writes, “Always.”
