Small hamsa hand tattoo on the wrist

The wasps have found the windfalls under the Bramley again, so I am writing this on the bench by the packing shed with my back to the sun and a bucket between my boots. Dad says the lorry comes Thursday if the rain holds off, which it will not, so we are picking in a hurry and I keep thinking of you. You would have hated the ladders. You would have loved the smell of the cider press Uncle Tom has dragged out of the barn.

Yesterday I found Gran's brass hand in the drawer of the tally desk, the one she hung over the cold store door to keep the mice and the bad luck out. Five fingers, a little heart cut into the palm, and those dotted marks she said were for counting blessings, though she counted them differently every time she told it. I rubbed it with vinegar and a rag and it came up the colour of a wet conker. Then I hung it back on its nail. I did not want to be the one who took it down.

I keep turning over the shape of it. The fingers are open, not curled into a fist, so you can see straight into the palm. Gran said that was the whole point. A closed hand holds on to things, she said, and an open one lets them go where they need to go. I thought that was nonsense when I was nine. On Sunday Mum rang to say she had sold the house in Faversham, and I stood in the orchard with the phone against my ear and felt my own hand opening without asking me first.

I'll post this with the Discoveries on Friday. Keep the top box for yourself and don't tell Dad which crate went missing. Come down when you can. The hand is still on its nail, and the trees are still full.

Love, Nell