The Palm Reader's Summer

Margaret sat on her front porch, her hands resting in her lap. At seventy-eight, her palms still carried the stories they always had—the deep lines her grandmother claimed foretold a long life, the calluses from decades of wringing washcloths and holding grandchildren's hands.

Across the yard, her great-grandson Cody was running through the sprinkler, his laughter piercing the humid afternoon air. The water arced toward the sky, rainbow-bright in the sun, just as it had when her own children were small.

"Great-Gran, come swim!" Cody called, splashing toward the small above-ground pool her son had installed last spring. "The water's perfect!"

Margaret smiled, shaking her head. "Your great-grandmother's bones don't swim anymore, baby. But you go on."

She remembered her own grandmother, the woman who'd taught her to read palms in the old country. People had come from miles around, seeking wisdom in the creases of their hands. Margaret's grandmother had always said the same thing: "Life is water, child. Sometimes you swim, sometimes you drown, but mostly you just float."

How strange that the old woman's words should return to her now, watching this boy—this beautiful, running, swimming boy—whose own palms were still smooth and unmarked.

Cody's mother, Sarah, appeared at the screen door. "Mom, you okay? You've been out here a while."

Margaret nodded. "Just remembering. My grandmother used to say palm reading was nonsense, but she did it anyway because people needed hope. She said the only real futures were the ones we made with our own two hands."

Sarah sat beside her. "Like how you taught all of us to swim."

"Like that."

The water lapped against the side of the pool. Somewhere in the distance, a neighbor's dog was barking at nothing at all. Margaret thought about how quickly time moved now, how the years seemed to blur together like paint in water.

"Great-Gran!" Cody called again, waving wet hands. "Come see what I found!"

He held up a perfect white shell, smooth as pearl.

Margaret struggled to her feet, knees popping, and made her way to the pool's edge. Cody placed the shell in her palm.

"It's for you," he said solemnly. "For keeping stories in."

She closed her fingers around it, feeling its cool surface. "Thank you, baby. I'll keep it always."

Sarah watched them, head tilted. "What will you tell your grandchildren about this day?"

Margareth smiled, opening her hand to admire the shell once more. "I'll tell them about the water," she said softly. "And the swimming. And how sometimes the best predictions are the ones we never saw coming."