Cursed Hand by CJ Paolilli

Originally published in January 2020

Cursed Hands

“Get down from there,” Silas yelled up at his nephew climbing the big oak tree in the front yard of his childhood home. With dirty hands he wiped the sweat off his forehead and pushed it into his greying thin hair to slick it back.

“You aren’t the boy’s father Sil. Don’t try to be,” Silas’s mother, Edith said to him from the porch.  Her blue floral-patterned dress separated her from the pale grass and dull grey wood of her surroundings as she sat in a rocking chair sipping on a ceramic mug of gin.

“Well his Daddy ain’t gonna be around for a long time.” Silas turned around and walked back towards the porch to sit in the empty seat next to her. The smell of oil on his unwashed clothes wafting towards her as he moved was almost unbearable for Edith.

“The ink isn’t even wet yet, and here you are talking bad about your brother.” She placed her half empty mug down on a scratched-up coffee table that used to reside in family’s living room, while Silas poured himself a cup.

“Handed down a life sentence, and you still got a mind to defend him.” Silas pulled a crooked cigarette out of a mangled pack and placed it between his lips. “They shoulda’ put you on the stand ma, then he’d be sitting right here drinking with us.” Silas lit his cigarette as his mother brought her hands to her face as if she was about to cry. “Aw Jesus, you don’t have to put on a show, we’re not in court anymore,” Silas said as he poured more gin into his mother’s cup.  

“There’s nothing wrong with defending my son.” Her callused fingers scraped at her face as she pretended to wipe away her tears. “He’s blood, and he’s the only brother you got, doesn’t that mean something to you?”

“Oh, it does mean something. I just never heard you defend me like that is all,” Silas said through his smoke-filled breath.

“Don’t start Sil.” She looked out at her overgrown yard. “Not today.” Hidden in the tall grass were old car batteries, paint cans, as well as Silas’s long forgotten bicycle, that decades ago had been carelessly tossed down by his teenage self on a fall evening and had been left to rust. “I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face if I have to. I love all my children the same.” She could hear her grandson calling out to her from the tree’s branches.

“Can you see me grandma?” the source of the boy’s high-pitched voice was hidden behind a cluster of shaking leaves.

“Yes, I can honey,” Edith called out not bothering to look in the tree’s direction.

“Would you get him down from there?” Silas sat up in his chair to spit off the edge of the porch.

“What’s the harm? You, and Henry used to climb that tree just about every day.” She rocked in her chair listening to the old porch creak underneath her shifting weight.

“Wasn’t nearly that tall back then. Although it seemed a lot bigger.” Silas slugged down the rest of his cup. “One time, Henry fell out of it. Slipped right off the branch on a rainy day, I thought he was dead,” Silas laughed, in his breath he could taste the sharp bitter pine flavor of gin. “I don’t think we ever told you about that, probably one of those things we swore to keep secret.” Silas poured more gin into his cup. “Suppose it doesn’t matter much now.”

“That boy has always been accident prone,” his mother tsked at the thought of it. “Trouble always seem to find him, like somewhere along the way he was touched by a cursed hand or something.” She smiled, and rested her head back, thinking about all the scraped knees she had bandaged when her children were young.

“Henry was just a dumbass Ma,” Silas spoke without looking at his mother, he imagined her smile folding into a scowl at his words. “No cursed hands about it, trouble always found him, because he went looking for it.” Silas looked up to the horizon, to see the gold and green of the late afternoon sun resting on the treetops.

“So, you think this is all his fault then?” Edith lazily turned her head to look over at him.

“I really can’t understand how anyone could see it any other way,” Silas said bringing his attention back to his mother.

“It was an accident, Sil.” Through the corner of her eye, she could see Silas leaning forward to refill his cup.

“How do you accidentally get behind the wheel blackout drunk?” Silas watched the water clear liquor pool up in the ceramic mug until it reached the brim.

“You act like you’ve never made a mistake in your life.” His mother stuck her mug out for another pour. “If you wanna talk about mistakes, how about we talk about yours.”

“How about we talk about your mistakes, Ma?” Silas barked at his mother and pushed her cup away. “Hell, I might be one of them, and rightfully so. But I’m a distant, distant second to Henry.”

“Oh, will you stop it,” his mother’s voice snapped into a needle-sharp tone. “Now give me some more.” She stuck her cup back out, Silas quietly grunted, and grabbed the cup out of her hand to refill it. “You know what problem is, what it always has been?”

“What’s that?” Silas handed the cup back to his mother.

“You always gotta look down on someone, without ever stopping to look at yourself.” His mother took a swig as soon as the cup was in her hands. “You try to call me out on my faults, like I’m the root of all the evil in the world.” Feeling the warmth of the gin in her throat she began to rock in her chair again. “We don’t need to fight.” Her voice calmed. “Like I said, I love both my sons the same.”

“You have three sons, Ma.” Silas gritted his teeth. “You forget about Jeremy?” Silas looked at his mother to see her face go pale.

“I didn’t,” she said quietly. “It’s just been so long.”

“Fifteen years now.” Silas raised his cup briefly as if he was giving a toast before slugging it back.

“You do that for him, but you badmouth Henry?” his mother said with a scoff of disbelief.

“Jeremy never hurt no one but himself.” Silas placed another cigarette between his lips. “Can’t say the same for Henry,” he said. His mother closed her eyes and shook her head. They could hear the boy’s laughter as he swung on the branches, he had made it up higher towards the canopy than Silas and Henry ever had.

“I haven’t been to his grave in I don’t know how long.” His mother brought her cup to her mouth.

“I know.” Silas looked down at the chipped paint porch. “I stopped going for a bit, but I try to go when I can.” The sun began to hide behind the trees, leaving the yard blanketed in the pale blue of dusk. “You should have seen it when I first went back. There was so much moss on his headstone, I couldn’t even read it, I had to scrape it all off just to make sure it was his.”

“It’s just hard for me to go up there,” She said. Silas still didn’t want to look at her, thinking she’d feign sorrow for his sympathy.

“Yeah well, when Henry dies at least you’ll have an excuse not to visit. They’ll probably put him in an unmarked grave.” Silas rolled the filter of his cigarette between his fingers. When he looked back at his mother, he saw anger instead of the sadness he expected.

“You’re a real piece of work. You just keep piling on, don’t you?” She put her mug down with a slam. “You know I’m hurting, and you’re sitting here having a grand time pouring salt in the wound.” She stood up from her chair.  “I think you should leave.

“I’m blood, and I’m the only son you got left. Thought that meant something to you?” he said in a pitchy tone trying to mock her voice. Silas’ use of her words hurt Edith more than she wanted to let on.

“I still have Henry, and little Hank.” she said pointing to the oak tree.

“Hank’s mother has got custody, you know she’s not gonna let you keep him, and even if you tried, she’d come looking for him eventually.” Silas said. His mother closed her eyes hard enough that it looked like she was in pain.

“Well, then I still have Henry.” Edith sat back down in the chair and ran her palms through her hair.

“Do you? How long Ma? How long until that long drive the prison is too far out of the way for you? A few months? A year?” he said as he grabbed the bottle of gin.

“Henry is good to me. He doesn’t treat me like this. He doesn’t treat me like you do.” Tears pooled up in the corners of her eyes, Silas could tell they were real this time.

“I just don’t walk on eggshells and treat you like you’re some god damn delicate antique.” Silas felt overcome with anger. He threw his empty mug against the porch shattering it.

“He’s always been a good son to me, and I know you always hated him for it.” Her words were nasally and sour.

“Henry is the good one? Do you know what they call Henry in town?” Silas stood up and knelt beside his mother to look her in the eyes. “They see me, and they say, ‘There’s Silas, his brother’s the baby killer.’ But yeah, he’s the good one.”

“They’re wrong Sil, they just don’t understand.” She closed her eyes and shook her head rapidly.

“Maybe you don’t understand. You’ve been going on about being a good mother, yet this whole time I haven’t heard you express the smallest bit of sympathy for that poor woman who lost her children.” Silas fought back his tears as he spoke and drank straight from the bottle.

“I’m a good mother dammit, I love my son. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She looked at him with pleading sorrow.

“Children are dead because of your son.” Silas yelled pointing out into the night. “You wanna know what your problem is?” His mother didn’t respond to the question. “You’ve done nothing but sit on this property since dad died. You’ve lost touch with the rest of the world.” The child in the tree had stopped laughing. Silas’s own voice echoing in the night sounded to him like a spot-on impression of his late father’s. It reminded him of all the nights he had heard his parents fighting. He and his brothers would huddle in the darkness at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping on their parent’s calling each other liar and bitch. Their angry voices were as startling as the sound of glass breaking. Silas watched tears flooding his mother’s eyelids and he couldn’t help but think how pitiful she looked. He suddenly lost the urge to continue the conversation, he left the porch without saying goodbye, and waded through the waist high grass towards his truck.

“At least I never had my kids taken away,” Edith spoke her sharp words with the hiss-like rasp of a tired voice.  

“My boys might have taken away from me all at once,” Silas turned back to his mother and spoke softly, ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest. “But yours are leaving you one by one. Dad is gone, Jeremy is gone, Henry is gone.” His mother couldn’t see his face in the night, in her blurred vision his figure seemed to fade away into the darkness that surrounded it. “And I don’t want to fight anymore.”