Behind
These
Hands
a novel in verse
LINDA VIGEN PHILLIPS
Durham, NC
Copyright © 2018 Linda Vigen Phillips
Behind These Hands
Linda Vigen Phillips
lightmessages.com/linda-phillips
Published 2018, by Light Messages
www.lightmessages.com
Durham, NC 27713 USA
SAN: 920-9298
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61153-259-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61153-258-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018933744
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without the prior written permission except in brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
To Anna and Luke,
who already know how to celebrate life
with their hands.
Table of Contents
Behind These Hands
Contents
Autumn THE TOCCATA IN D MINOR
THE BROTHERS
“THE KITE”
JUAN
MIA
HOME AFTER SCHOOL
THE SCORE
THE LOCKER
RULES OF THE GAME
SOMETHING MORE
WAITING
PAINFUL
WAVERING IN THE WIND
RESOLVE
TRASHED IDEA
AMBIVALENCE
THE TRUTH
TEST RESULTS
WHY
NEW NORMAL
THE NEXT DAY
BUSINESS AS USUAL
A GOOD DOSE OF TARA
A SECOND GOOD DOSE
A BAD FIT
PRACTICE
CONFESSION
FEELING DIRTY
AFTER-SCHOOL MAYHEM
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO…
DON’T QUESTION A GOOD THING
BLOOD WORK
MUSIC MADNESS
TAKE “ONE”
IT’S SIMPLY TOO HARD
SATURDAY AT THE PARK
NOT TO WORRY
MONDAY PRACTICE ROOM, TEXT TO JUAN
MONDAY NIGHT, TEXT TO MIA
INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION WITH MY FINGERS
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
THE LAUGHTER DIES
IT’S ALL RELATIVE
THE PREMIERE
LIFE AFTER DEADLINE
FAMILY DYNAMICS
DAY-MARE
REGRETS
ONLY GOOD LEFTOVERS
AFRAID
COMFORT ZONE
BE GONE
WRITING ASSIGNMENT
HEAVY NEWS
THE TREE AND THE LEAVES
MISSING INFORMATION
HUG
LOOKS
Winter Part 1 THE BEAST
THE DETAILS
CARRIER
THE QUESTIONS
THE UNDERSTUDIES
WITH JUAN’S HELP
THE STALKER
QUIET DAY
SCHMOOZIES
JUST A BAD DREAM
BIG FAT ‘D’
LET IT OUT
TWENTY ‘HELPS’
PRACTICE
THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT
THE ONLY FEARFUL ONE
CAR CHATTER
A GOLDMINE
JAZZ NIGHT
BROKEN THANKSGIVING
KINDNESS AGAIN
WHITE NOISE
SMALL TALK IN THE PARK
NO MORE BAD NEWS
SCHMOOZIES GROUP THERAPY
INTRODUCTION
MEET AND GREET
NEW FAMILY ORIENTATION
TIPS FOR THE FAMILY
MEMORIAL ROOM
GOLD MINE
SORRY FOR MYSELF
PERMISSION
TRAFFIC JAM
THE ROCK
HOW IT FEELS
IN THE WINNER’S CORNER
AN ISSUE TO BE DEALT WITH
WITHOUT A MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT
FRAGMENTS
TALKING SOON
THE WORDS I NEED
THE CAUSE
REHEARSING
BAD IDEA
GUILTY DAY
Winter Part 2 be-CAUSE
NIGHT RIDE
LOST CAUSE
HE’S A GUY
THE CONTEST CONTINUES
THE DISCONNECT
MAKING WISHES
PAINFUL EXPLANATION
BAD IDEA AGAIN
NO CLUES
SETTING AN EXAMPLE
AVOIDANCE
SITCOMS AND SHOULDS
READY TO TALK, READY TO LISTEN
DEAL WITH IT
MUSIC OR ME?
DEALING WITH DREAMS AND REALITY
ORBITING BODIES
GOLDILOCKS
WE LOVE YOU, MRS SHEPHERD
BILLY AND MARY
GETTING THE BALL ROLLING
MY NEW WORLD
SNOW DAZE
A DATE WITH GOOGLE
CRYING OUT FOR ANSWERS
UNFAVORABLE CLIMATE
AFTERTHOUGHT
LATE NIGHT MESSAGE
APOLOGIES
THE FEATHER NAMED PRIDE
HOPING FOR THE BEST
NOT NOW, SAYS THE VOICE
HARD DECISION
LIKE SALVE ON OPEN WOUNDS
CHRISTMAS DAY
ENERGIZED
THIRD TIME, YES!
EGOS AND POSSIBILITIES
THE GANG’S ALL HERE
TO CLAIRE AND THE CAUSE
THE BEAUTIFUL CHILD FUND
SOMETHING
SAD NEWS
FORGING AHEAD
HOW IT IS NOW
WALK IN THE PARK
MOMENT OF INDECISION
ANY MORE UGLINESS
LATE NIGHT REALIZATION
NIGHT WALK
TIRED
SICK
I WILL DO THIS FOR THEM
THE RECITAL
EMERGENCY ROOM VISIT
FORGIVENESS
HOME AND HOSPITALS
Spring THE REHASH
MORE CHANGES
QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS
JOY, PURE AND DEEP DOWN
EARLY CALL
STREAMING LIFE
TIME TO REFLECT
DREAMING NEW DREAMS
DOUBLE DOSE
GETTING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD
FRIDAY EVENING
THE FIRST PARTY
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
If You Liked Behind These Hands
Autumn
THE TOCCATA IN D MINOR
Late afternoon sun
slants through the windows
in dancing patterns.
Trees full of tired leaves
sway outside in a humid
September wind,
the kind of wind that
brings hurricanes to these parts.
Bach’s Toccata in D Minor
lifts off the keyboard,
not by itself
like an old-fashioned player piano,
but because practiced fingers,
fingers that Dad said were born
fourteen years ago
for precisely this purpose,
know the exact moment to strike,
the exact moment to lift.
Playing this piece creates
its own hurricane in my head.
Maybe dark for a moment
and eerie<
br />
then rising above the storm.
A storm that ends
not with destruction
but depletion,
exhaustion,
relief.
I finish the piece and stare
down at these long, slender fingers
that seem to have already made important
life decisions
without much input from me.
I’m about ready to start a conversation—
me with my hands and fingers—
when I hear a sound
growing painfully familiar:
Davy bumping into the doorway
on his way from the kitchen,
letting out with a loud “ouch”
before plopping into the chair
next to the piano.
“Can you teach me now, Claire?
Please, can you?”
I watch an orange popsicle
drip down his wrist.
I jump up to catch it with
a ragged Kleenex from my pocket.
“Your hands are sticky and
I have homework, Bud.
Another time, okay?”
“That’s what you always say.”
He sidles off the chair and stumbles up
the stairs, leaving an orange trail
on the hardwood floor.
“I don’t always say you have sticky
fingers,” I mutter under my breath.
But it’s true.
I always say something to put him off
because otherwise I would have to face
trying to teach my nearly blind,
learning-disabled brother
how to play the Toccata
and that thought
overwhelms
me.
THE BROTHERS
Davy wasn’t always visually impaired.
That’s what they call him at school
since his eyesight started going bad last year.
I was seven when he was born,
perfect in every way,
chubby,
smiling all the time.
I used to ask Mom why he didn’t cry much.
She just told me to enjoy it
while it lasts.
It has lasted all these years
even when his eyesight started going bad
and now
they say he has a learning disorder,
but he just keeps smiling.
It bothers me
that he smiles so much,
maybe because it doesn’t seem
normal;
maybe because I know for sure
if I were in his shoes
my smile
would be the first to go.
Trent smiles, too,
but it’s more often like
the sun that comes out after a storm.
Fiercely competitive at the age of six,
especially in anything athletic,
it takes some work on everybody’s part
to get him to smile
after he loses at anything.
But even at his young age
he rarely loses.
He’s that competitive.
I hear them upstairs in Davy’s room
playing Nintendo.
The bleeps and clicks,
wah wahs, kerpows,
scale runs announcing
down
the
flagpole
or
power up,
form their own familiar music,
and for now
it is a peaceful,
harmonious duet.
Davy must be smiling along
with Trent’s triumphs.
“THE KITE”
I move the something-interesting-casserole
from fridge to oven and set the time
and temperature.
It’s faculty meeting day for Mom
and Wind Ensemble practice for Dad
which means one of them
did pre-dinner cooking before dawn.
They have teamwork and efficiency down
so well
it’s hard to decide which one
contributed most
to my type-A,
power-driven,
ambitious
gene-pool.
I have time to get in some practice
before I make the salad
or before the melodic duo upstairs
deteriorates into
brotherly discord.
I ease onto the piano bench,
pause to breathe, straighten my posture
much as I do
before a recital, and let my fingers go
unleashed like puppies on an open beach.
I let them go wherever they want,
and I talk to them.
(Only Juan knows I talk to my hands
and fingers. He and his flute fingers
are the only ones
who could ever relate.)
Let’s fly.
Sail.
Soar.
Don’t let the wind catch up.
My composition, “The Kite,”
not yet put down on paper
but carving an increasingly firm
notch in my brain,
carries me back eight years to Nags Head
on a Carolina blue day
when it was just Mom and Dad
and me,
the flaming red and orange dragon kite,
and a roaring ocean wind
the week before first grade.
The taste of salt,
sand clinging to my bare feet,
my long hair trailing behind in the wind
like the dragon’s tail,
the rising, dipping,
unpredictable flight path
and most of all
the lyrical, contagious laughter
of Mom
and Dad
and me.
I finish the piece, smiling.
Yes, I have it.
Yes, I am ready to write it down.
Yes, I am ready to record it.
Yes, I am ready to go after
the most prestigious music contest
in North Carolina.
JUAN
I picture Juan’s composition
bursting out his open bedroom window
on these Autumn afternoons
like a soaring songbird.
When Juan practices, he loses himself
in his music
totally,
just like I do.
Every breath he breathes
into his sterling silver Haynes
results in
mysterious,
magical
music.
I haven’t heard his piece
but I know it will be
genius material.
We’ve been best friends
and musical competitors
since our mothers signed us up
for piano lessons
at Mrs. Cobb’s Music Studio
when we were five.
In the fourth grade Juan
discovered the flute,
but he says
piano will always be his first love.
He’s taken first place
at just about every flute competition
he’s ever entered.
When his parents got him
the sterling silver Haynes
two years ago,
he gave me his old Armstrong
and enough lessons
to play mess-around flute
with him when the mood strikes.
Now there’s a new twist
and no time for jamming.
For the first time
ever
we will compete against each other
in the NC Music Teachers’ Association
composition competition.
Juan on the flu
te,
me on the piano,
there can be
only
one
winner.
The thought of this
not being a good idea
gives me more butterflies
than the thought of
performing my own composition.
But Juan,
ever the punster,
says we can both “Handel” it
and ever the competitor,
says we should each pour all our energy
into perfecting our own piece.
When I consulted my fingers
they agreed,
but my heart
isn’t quite so sure.
MIA
I don’t really consult Mia
about competing against Juan
because I already know
what she will say.
“Go for it, girl!”
Her confidence in me
exceeds
my confidence in me
most of the time.
My confidence in her
exceeds
my confidence in me
most of the time,
too.
What we have in common
is an unadulterated obsession
over the things we love most.
She’s been writing stories,
poems,
plays,
articles,
and her mother’s grocery list
since she was barely out of diapers,
or so she tells me.
You don’t get to be yearbook editor,
and school newspaper editor,
and writing contest winner
unless there’s some truth to it.
She tries to get me to branch out,
you know, write an article or two
for the paper,
and I try to get her to appreciate the beauty
of Bach’s chorales,
but mostly we stay buried in our own worlds
and maintain our membership
in the mutual admiration society.
HOME AFTER SCHOOL
Mom arrives first
with the beaten down,
post-faculty-meeting look