*****
You are getting older. Although you hate to admit it, you are not the man you once were. Nor do you really want to be him again. Your style has changed; your moods are different, too. You are calmer in the wake of the storm of your youth. Even law is different now. You still believe in the things you swore to protect and defend. Truth, honor, and justice aren’t just abstract concepts to you. They are real and they mean something, but you can recognize the need to compromise now. Some arguments need to be lost in order to win the bigger ones.
It didn’t surprise you when you realized life wasn’t ordered. But it surprised you when you turned around and saw that where you were wasn’t where you had thought you would be. You can see the diverged trails, the dead ends, and the odd twists that give shape to your path. The lifeline on your palm has so many tiny, fragmented lines and you always kind of thought you’d see your past in the wake of a carrier or in a vapor trial, not written on your palm.
When the phone rang, you left. The Wall, high and black and filled with too many names, loomed behind you and you knew your father would understand. Did you wonder if that meant you were being a bad son? Or did it mean that the past could be left in the past and the road in Virginia was your future? You think your father would understand. You think he might have done the same. You understand – now – that your past, your father and your family, is always with you. It’s a constant presence and maybe now it’s time to make sure your future is, too.
She didn’t look good. You didn’t expect her to, but for some reason it still shocked you Just a little, anyway. It shocked you more that she apologized. But you were grateful for it. Somewhere, inside, you wanted to shout.
There are so many things that went wrong. Your lifeline is simple compared to your heart line. But if you could read palms, if you believed that your future and your past could be divined in the lines of your hand, you would see her. A constant when everything else was not.
She
turned her hand over beneath yours and her fingers folded against the
back of your hand. Your thumb rubbed over her palm, soothing the only
part of her that didn’t hurt. It brushed over her lifeline and caressed
the heart line in its sweep and you think her lines are as complicated,
as messy, and as real as yours. Her eyes drifted shut. Her lashes fluttered
over her cheeks and she sighed a little before giving in to the stress
of the accident. She fell asleep long before you considered letting go
of her hand.