I kept it in my pocket, ineptly hidden away, as if it weren’t uniquely gifted at fooling people. But then my caution was forgivable, and forgiven, since it arose from love and from a beginner’s ignorance about what the hand could do. And no one ever looked at me anyway; that was one of my more typical problems. When I walked down the sidewalk, I had to weave this way and that, and even step out of the stream of foot traffic into doorways or behind mailboxes, because people would have walked right into me if I hadn’t, would have thrown me down and trampled me, stepped right on my face with their filthy soles and impaling high heels. But that time, the big man coming toward me on New Year’s Day, heedless, eyes on his ridiculous phone—without a thought I waved at him, waved at him with my hand of glory, and he turned aside... or I should say, he was turned aside. Turned aside for me, who had always been the one to turn aside, not the one anybody would turn aside for. I passed him by, exultation in my throat, and I had to step into the doorway of an empty storefront to collect myself, to press my hand of glory to my chest and ask it to still my bursting heart.