50. Fingertips
These are the crisp conduits of nature: knuckle, finger, nail, and the knobby recession back to the wrist.
Her nails are well groomed and short; his are the same, with barely perceptible calluses on the first three: middle, index, and thumb. Her fingers are perhaps stronger than his are—but when they hold hands in secret, they do it with all the tender harshness of poets, of realists.
They let lives fall through their finger and land in their laps, knowing far too well that what they are hoping for is unlikely to come to pass.
They hold each other's hands tightly; as if trying to leave love notes in the tiny half-moon indentations their nails leave behind in each other's skin.