Theme Week #2

He has his hands. My husband has my stepfather's hands. The fingers are long and square at the end. The top of his palm is wide with a tint of reddish blond hair that fades towards the knuckles. Hands, to me, aren't just necessary appendages. We build with our hands, destroy with our hands, love, and even hate with our hands.

I was four when I met Ed, my stepfather. My brother, sisters and I were sitting in the back of a station wagon with my mother's friend Marsha. It was dark outside. The mist hung tight on the windows. I remember feeling very uneasy. The shadowed light we had, came from a street light beyond some pine trees. When my mother finally did come out of the club, Ed was with her. She tapped at the window for me to roll it down. Ed stuck his head in and said hello. I didn't like his looks. He had kinky hair, dark eyes and a scruffy face. He joked about taking her away from us. What was funny to him became a fear I carried for over a decade.

Ed was a violet man. When he wasn't drinking, he was the father I always wanted. He teased me a lot which brought me out of my shell and gave my shyness a much needed reprieve. I welcomed the feeling. He stood up for me when my siblings picked on me, listened to me when it felt like no one ever would, and on many occasions ate my meatloaf so I could leave the kitchen table. When he drank, he was an unimaginable monster. I was torn between a man I hated, and the only father I knew and loved.

When I was seven I woke, as I often did, to my mother screaming. I ran downstairs to see my stepfather on top of her with his hands clenched around her neck. I remember time moving in slow motion as I grabbed at his hands desperately trying to pry them away. His hands were all I could see. They became an ugly imprint in my mind.

I was thirteen when my mother divorced Ed. She met a man named Butch. He was an
ex-professional boxer. He was a quiet, stout man with an odd tick in his face which caused me to stare a lot. When he twitched, he would take his stubby fingers and repeatedly rub them under his nose. His knuckles were scarred and calloused. He and my mother dated for a few months before he became physical with her and then made the mistake of threatening us. My mother had a distorted view of what it meant to keep us safe. She thought she was doing her job if she took the blows not knowing the pain it caused us to watch.

I moved out at fifteen and became a nanny. It was also when I met my first boyfriend, Chris. He was everything pure to me. He was a Catholic virgin that didn't drink, and attended church every Sunday. He was confident, strong, and held my hand wherever we went while I dutifully followed behind him. His hands were soft, clean and gentle. It was three years before I realized that I had a voice. Soon, it was apparent that my timid demeanor was the facade that was his strength. He lost control and his hands followed.

Over the years every man in and out of my life held in their hands my fears and disappointments. Looking at my husbands hands, the hands that hold me when I'm scared, wipe my tears when I cry; the very hands I held when I vowed to love him forever. They look like my stepfather's hands but seeing them as I do, they are nothing like his at all.