**THE HANDKERCHIEF**
“Greg’s snoring again!” Emily thought irritably. She pushed her husband’s arm off her and turned onto her side. Glancing at her phone, she noted it was already past one in the morning.
“I won’t fall back asleep now, and I’ve got work tomorrow,” she grumbled inwardly. “I’ll be nodding off all day. At least I don’t have to wake up early—I’m on the late shift—but still. I’m not twenty anymore, when I could dance all night and wake up fresh as a daisy. Those moonlit dates where you’d come home too excited to sleep, replaying every conversation with Greg, trying to remember every little detail—and in the end, all that stuck were a few phrases and that foolish, blissful smile. His face, so close and dear, flickering in my mind like scenes from a film. His eyes—grey, kind, steady, with no hidden depths—so clear…”
Meanwhile, Greg let out another thunderous snore, undisturbed, breathing peacefully beside her.
“What am I supposed to do? Maybe we should agree to sleep in separate rooms?” Emily wondered.
With nothing better to do, she began dredging up old grievances and conjuring new ones. It felt like she’d accumulated enough complaints to fill a railway carriage and a supermarket trolley combined. What was driving her tonight? Resentment? Irritation? Frustration? Disappointment? Who could say?
“The kids are grown. It’s just the two of us now. Everything’s fine, really… but something’s off. What is it?” The anxious thought drilled into her mind like a blunt screw, leaving holes no broom could sweep clean.
In the dark, Emily studied her sleeping husband. Oblivious to her scrutiny, he dozed on while she multiplied his flaws by two, forgetting that division by zero wasn’t allowed—though some long-buried school lesson nagged at her. Wasn’t it always easier to spot the speck in someone else’s eye?
“Greg’s gone completely grey. Put on weight, too. Wrinkles like rivers on a map carve across his forehead, betraying age, hardships, illnesses. And to think how handsome he used to be!”
“He doesn’t light up when I come home anymore. No more rushing to the hall to take my coat, no kisses, no asking how my day was. And the way he slurps his tea—it drives me mad! He hides his dirty work clothes, but as soon as he’s asleep, I toss them in the wash. Next morning, he grumbles, ‘I haven’t even broken in these shirts, and you’re swapping them!’”
“Of course, he’s hurt me before. Badly. We’ve weathered more than one rough patch—fighting, making up, patching things together. And his family! They never thought I was good enough for him. At our wedding, they hugged *him*, congratulated *him*, while I stood there like a spare part. They even counted my dresses and boots, calling me a spendthrift to my face! Never mind that I worked all along, owned barely more than the essentials—budget buys, at that! My friend stitched my outfits from magazine patterns. And Greg? He just shrugged. ‘Ignore them, love. They’re jealous. Rise above it.’”
“But the worst was when our daughter, Lily, fell seriously ill,” Emily’s self-reproach continued. “We traipsed through hospitals before they finally diagnosed her. When we had to go to London for tests, I barely slept, dreading the worst. And Greg? He seemed so calm. Silent. He never once hugged me and said, ‘It’ll be alright.’ We just… drifted. I felt utterly alone.”
“When it was over, we cried together, apologising, forgiving…”
“And yet, how he courted me! How we met! I was trudging down an unfamiliar street, bawling, with no umbrella, soaked to the skin. My dress clung to my legs, and my misery matched the pouring rain. Why? At uni, my classmates had pooled money to buy gifts for our professors—just five quid each. My mum refused to contribute, lecturing me about ‘sucking up’ and telling me to study harder. My scholarship, even the top-up for good grades, went straight to her. She’d give me a pound for three days’ meals—no more. ‘You live at home; what else do you need?’”
“That evening, I had two pounds and thirty-five pence to my name—thirty-five pence saved by skipping lunch. Gran, my ally, wouldn’t get her pension for a week. I was desperate. Then, out of nowhere, an umbrella appeared over my head.”
“You shouldn’t be wandering alone at this hour,” a man’s voice said. “Especially without an umbrella. You’ll catch your death—or worse.”
“Mind your own business!” I snapped.
“I only wanted to offer you my handkerchief. It’s clean. Let me at least dry your tears.”
That handkerchief—large, white, with navy checks—still sits in our drawer. It smelled faintly of aftershave. Maybe that’s what won me over? I washed it afterward, kept it like a relic of the night we met.
“How did Greg even know I was crying? The rain was torrential!”
“I felt it in my heart,” he’d say later. “I couldn’t leave you there, crying in the rain. My name’s Greg. Yours?”
“Emily.”
“Nicky—may I call you that? Come, there’s a café nearby. Let me buy you tea—or coffee—and a bun. Warm up, fix your face, and tell me what’s wrong. I swear on my honour as a gentleman, your secrets are safe with me.”
Despite myself, I smiled then—just as I did now, careful not to wake him.
“In that café, I spilled everything. Normally guarded, I laid bare every worry. Greg listened, lent me the five pounds, and when I tried to repay him a week later, he refused, wounded. ‘A real man lives to be needed. Thank you for letting me help.’”
Dawn crept through the window. Sleepless, Emily lay there, retracing their long—and, as it turned out, happy—life. They’d had it all: joy, grief, shared burdens. Greg never left her to face anything alone.
They’d buried loved ones, clung together like frightened hamsters. Now, with their children married, they were left like orphans themselves, and Emily fretted: *How are they managing without us?*
“Honestly, what am I fussing about? Look in the mirror—wrinkles, extra pounds, creaky joints! No use whinging over nothing. So he snores? Just ask him to roll over.”
As if reading her thoughts, Greg turned, still asleep, and pulled her close, kissing the back of her head. The weight lifted.
Wasn’t this what every woman wanted? To be loved, cherished—her worries, even the ones she created, shouldered without complaint. To have her tears dried with a handkerchief, to be rocked like a child, called “my little girl” even when she was grown.
Emily woke at ten and shuffled to the kitchen.
“Finally up, sleepyhead?” Greg kissed her. “You woke me at six—purring like Whiskey on my arm.”
“You mean I was *snoring*?”
“I’d say you were… breathing expressively. Didn’t you know?”
“No,” she admitted softly.
Truly, we spot the splinter in another’s eye but miss the plank in our own. Maybe we should examine our own reflections more closely.
As for the rest? Every problem can be solved together—under an umbrella.
