“Bare Hands” - Short Story Contest Finalist

When I was twelve and I got my first period, my great-Aunt Tensie drove me to the MiniMart to get everything I needed. Then we sat in the parking lot, and she told me the story of how she got married.

“I met Walker Armstrong in July of 1950.” She started. My great-Aunt Tensie was real old, even then. Her accent was almost totally faded, only popping out when she sang along to Hank Williams and Patsy Cline on the record player, with her eyes closed. “The wedding was in September.”

“I grew up in Raywick, you know, and we hadn’t seen rain in months. No one could remember the last time temperatures had dipped below ninety-five, and that was warm for September, even for Kentucky. But by some strange twist of fate, I woke up the morning of the ceremony and saw this big storm starting up above me. I remember the sky was flat and gray, this one big sheet of cloud just trembling with rain. The floor in my bedroom was real sticky, ‘cause of the humidity, the water in the air. When I came into the kitchen, my Mama, your great-Grandma Alice, was standing at the sink, looking through the tiny window.”

“Do you really remember all this?” I asked. Like I said, great-Aunt Tensie was old.

“I do.” She replied mildly. “Like a movie.” 

“I remember I walked downstairs and my mama said ‘Good morning’ and I said 'Good morning’. And I asked her if she reckoned it was gonna rain.” 

“What’d she say?”

“She said ‘I believe I do’. And she looked real worried. We stood there like that for a while, just looking out at the sky.” She unwrapped a chocolate bar she must have bought in the MiniMart, and broke off a chunk for me as she spoke.

“Now, Jamie,” That was me. I’m Jamie. “This kind of storm, or even the possibility of one, would usually worry folks; we saw floods all the time. But I guess we wanted the rain so badly that we just couldn’t bear to worry. We just hoped that the weather would finally change.”

“Now I don’t know, because I was too damn nervous to notice much of anything, but everyone says that it started to pour down right as I was walking down the aisle. Mama and James said the rain on the church roof was so deafening that it was hard to hear our vows.” She paused here. “You’ve met James, of course.”

“Yeah.” I said. “Only a few times. We went to the funerals last year.” Great-Grandma Alice and Great-Grandpa James had died within a week of each other last spring. I asked Mom why they had both died at the same time and she told me that after James died, Great-Grandma Alice just didn’t want to be alone.

“She’d been through a lot in her life.” She told me while we drove to the service. “I think she was just waiting for Grandpa James, and then she was ready to go.”

“Well, anyways.” Great-aunt Tensie continued. “All I know is that when the ceremony was over and Walker opened the church doors, it was raining harder than I had ever seen in my life. No one tried to go outside to throw rice or anything, and Walker and I hauled ass to his truck, which was parked around back. So it ended up being that Walker drove us to the new house in the rain. Someone had hung a sign that said “Just Married” on the back of his truck, which I guess didn’t matter ‘cause we were driving out of town from the church, so no one was likely to see us. But at the time, I thought it was nice. Sort of romantic.

“When we got there, the front lawn was all muddy, and he opened my door for me and helped me across the yard. I remember I was glad he didn’t try and carry me through the door like in movies, because I was sure he couldn’t have lifted me if he tried. I’ve always been a bigger lady.”

That had actually always been one of my favorite things about Great-aunt Tensie. She wasn’t  soft, exactly, but sturdy. Her body was folding, curving, spanning this whole landscape of a woman. When I was younger she told me that she kept her memories tucked away in the folds of her belly. 

“I remember that house. I only spent a few years there, before Walker died. The door was unlocked, that first time we drove up. It was still raining, and we walked through that door without saying anything to each other, if I recall, and he closed it behind him.”

There was a stillness after she finished her story. We had finished the chocolate, and while she was talking a slow, misting rain had started, just enough to leave droplets on the windshield of her car. That car was real old, too. When I asked about it one time, great-Aunt Tensie said it was a 1962 Ford Fairlane, the first and only car she ever bought. My daddy had tried to buy her this really nice new car for her sixtieth birthday, but she said she had driven her car since she was thirty-one, she would drive her car until she died.

“Do you miss him?” I asked after a minute.

She started the car again and I fastened my seatbelt. “No, I don’t, really. It was a very long time ago.”

“Did you miss him right after he died?”

“No, I didn’t.” She paused and I waited. “He was not a very nice man, was the thing.”

“Oh. Well that was a good story, anyways.”

“I’m glad you liked it. I guess it wasn’t as exciting as my traveling stories.” I loved her traveling stories. After Walker died, great-Aunt Tensie went just about everywhere there was to go. I especially liked when she told me about springtime in Japan, or the Christmas she spent in Sweden. “It’s nothing special, I guess I mean to say. Just about every woman has a wedding story.” 

“Not everybody has travel stories like you, though.”

I glanced at her hands on the steering wheel. I had never seen her wear a wedding ring.

“Why don’t you wear your wedding ring anymore?” I asked. “Is it because Walker wasn’t a nice man?”

She smiled.

“I don’t wear a wedding ring because I am not married, sweet thing.”

Bare hands and stories of Japanese springtime hidden in the folds of her stomach.