Page 27 of The Hand that Frays

Part of me wants to burst through the front doors and shoot him between the eyes before strangling his wife and watching the light die in her eyes.

She’s the physical, breathing embodiment of what I went through as a child.

She might as well be my mother.

“Eat your fucking food,Neo. I swear to all that’s holy!” Mom shouts.

She’s shaking and sweating, and I don’t know why my eating stresses her out so badly.

“Mom, it tastes bad!” I whine.

She lifts her hand as if she’s going to backhand me, and I wince, closing my eyes tightly to prepare for the blow.

When it doesn’t come, I inch open my lids.

She’s got her eyes closed and tapping on her forehead, counting to ten aloud repeatedly.

“Mom?” I whisper.

She gets like this, and sometimes I wonder if she will return to me.

I look at the food before me. It’s a Hamburger Helper—the one from the red box that tastes like a cheeseburger. It’s usually my favorite, but it smells lemony and doesn’t taste very good tonight.

It’s as if my tastebuds are warning me not to eat whatever she laced inside it. But she can’t mean to poison me. I’m her son.

She keeps tapping and counting as I grapple with what to do.

If I eat, she’ll calm down.

But if I eat, I’ll be sick.

I know it.

“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll eat it,” I tell her, reaching for her with my small hand.

I plug my nose and down my food when she doesn’t settle.

An hour later, when I’m retching over the toilet, she rubs the back of my neck to comfort me.

“You’re always such a good boy, Neo. You did so well with your dinner.”

I groan as another wave of sickness overwhelms me.

Mom hushes my cries, her hand softly rubbing my back as if she wasn’t the hand that fed me the poison.

“Shh, my love. It’ll be alright; Mama’s here,” she tells me, and a strange shiver goes down my spine and stops at my toes.

Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of, I think.

I shakeout of the memory and shiver. That was the first time that I realized my mother was the reason I was always sick.

I was eight.

No eight-year-old should go through the things I did.

I know I’m a fucked-up man because of my past, and I’m no better than she is with the hurt I cause, but I do it because of her.

I do it to save those who can’t save themselves.

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