The Wrist Loop

We were waiting for a sandwich outside the café. A woman stood beside a van with a box of bread.

It had begun to rain.

We offered her our umbrella.

“To borrow,” we said.

We put the short loop over our left wrist and passed her the handle. She took it in her right hand.

“It is still ours,” we said.

She looked at the bread.

We walked to the café together. The loop allowed about four inches between our wrist and her hand.

She kept the box beneath the middle of the umbrella. Our right shoulder was outside.

On the café step a man was counting coins into his palm.

“Here,” she said, passing him the handle.

He took it in his left hand. She carried the bread inside.

The man needed both hands for his change. He asked us to hold the umbrella.

We closed our left hand around the handle. He picked the coins over in the dry.

Two of them were stuck together.

He separated them and went in.

A woman with a pushchair moved into the space he had left.

We lifted the umbrella above the hood while she fastened the rain cover. The child kept lifting one foot.

We moved the umbrella towards the foot.

The woman with the bread came out with our sandwich in a paper bag.

“They said this was yours.”

We took it in our right hand.

The child lifted the other foot.

We moved the umbrella.

Rain began to darken the bottom of the bag.

We put the sandwich against our chest and folded the wet paper underneath it with our thumb.