rivettingKateTaylor

The iron hisses and sputters; steam rising around the iron like the breath from a cattle beast’s nostrils on a frosty winter’s morning.

Testing the tip of the hot edge on an extreme corner of the soft green material smoothed out on the ironing board in front of me, I ponder that green. It is a unique green, not turquoise like the tropical seas around a Pacific island, not forest green like pine trees, nor lime green like a parrot feather, but… teal? Green. Just green. Granny’s green hanky.

When I’m gone, no one’s going to remember that it was her hanky. My kids, despite their two grandmothers’ best intentions, have never taken to using hankies let alone noticing what I might have tucked up my sleeve for an errant runny nose.

I don’t even remember Granny using the hanky, just that it came to me in a wee evening bag. I used to keep it in that same bag because I didn’t want to use it, or lose it, but that’s dumb, isn’t it? It’s just green material. It’s just a piece of material. Just green. Green like Granny’s emerald ring? Nope. Green like the speckles in her opal ring? Closer but still nope.

The iron hisses as I lift it away, folding the hanky in half, before pressing the hot metal back onto the material.

Like I said, I can’t remember her using the hanky, not like I can picture her reading her book or playing patience with her tattered set of cards on the dining table; her wrinkled, weathered hands turning the pages or feeding another three cards onto the patience pile.

I imagine reaching out to hold her hand; wrinkly, but so warm and soft. I looked down at my own hands, warmed from the heat of the iron. I have nice hands but they’re starting to look more like my mum’s, and hers have been starting to look more like her mum’s hands as the years have passed. I can’t picture Granny’s nails, or Mum’s, but mine are currently covered with pink glitter. I have small hands, but I like the way my new gel nails make my fingers look longer.

Age is starting to show on the back of my hands despite the daily application of SPF moisturizer to try to stop the inevitable slide to Granny’s wrinkles. There are a few sunspots and a couple of small scars. A couple of veins look blue-green. I laugh out loud. Now I’m getting closer to the shade of green of Granny’s hanky.

The iron hisses as I lift it away, folding the hanky in half again, before pressing the hot metal back onto the material.

My thoughts stray to the photos lining the wall of our hallway. There’s one I took 23 years ago.

My grandfather’s work-hardened, wrinkly hands rest on his knee. His little finger is almost obscured by the grip of my toddler daughter’s tiny hand daughter. The photo is only of two hands, but it tells such a story; one life well lived and the other with the promise of years to come.

The iron hisses as I lift it away, folding the hanky in half one more time, before giving it a quick kiss, adding it to the growing pile, and reaching out for whatever is next.

Hands can tell us so much about a person. The soft, white flesh of an office worker who has never seen manual labour, or the crusty, blackened hand of an engineer. The dirt under the nails of a farmer, or the sweet smell of baby powder on the hands of a new mother. The innocent canvas smoothness of a child’s hands through to the life-stained phalanges of our elders.

(Written for a short story contest; it had to be about hands).