You said, "You'll make it." I said, "I don't think I will." You leaned your head on my shoulder and weaved your fingers into mine. All the fingers were wet and another tear dripped onto them. You didn't wipe it off. I looked at them and I knew I could never forget them, your glassy fingers, full of purity. You always held them straight, not curled, as your hands hung at your sides. You'd walk slowly, swinging them gently, measured arcs of tranquil movement. Your hands in church, resting on your lap. Your hands in a book, pressed around a too-angular pencil, writing in cursive, making swishing sounds. Your hands gesturing, fingers splayed; you were passionate in conversation and you talked with your words and your hands. Your hands. Of course they were soft, they were cool and clean. Both your hands in mine. Your hands in my hair, twisting it into spiky two-inch-long braids; I remember your fingernail scraped my scalp and I shivered. "Promise to leave them in 'til they come out?" Your narrow fingernails, and the tips of your fingers, transparent red and gold in the dim light of the bed lamp. They looked like candles and they felt like butterflies.

Your hands waving goodbye; I can't see the goodbye. All I see are your hands, waving. Your hands coming back for one last embrace. "You'll make it." "I don't think I will."

I stop here. I go back to the beginning. Your hands in my memory. You caress my mind. I keep that to live on. I have it. I hold it.