Raised A Hand To Her

Raised A Hand To Her

It was 1978, maybe 79

I was 6.
We lived in Kittery, on Dennett Road,

in a rental house that still stands.

I had just, that day, decided to

Incorporate

The word ‘Fiend’

Into my vocabulary,

Having heard it on some cartoon.

We were in the car,

And my father was detailing

Some dishonesty

Of his employer.

Not fully understanding,

But knowing he felt betrayed,

I broke in with

“Well, I guess that makes

General Dynamics

A fiend.”

My parents laughed,

And agreed with my precociousness.

It was a quiet day, and night.

Until I was woken up by mom

Climbing into my bed, demanding

That I move to the edge to make room.

I slept again.

Her hand smacked my face,

Bouncing my head off my pillow.

From REM to terror in painful confusion.

Spanking wasn’t allowed in our house,

so I had little experience

With violence,

Thus was transfixed with a bonedeep

Thought of “WHY?”,

in conflict with animal fear.

My wide eyes fixed on hers,

And she said something

I didn’t quite understand

That I later thought was:
“That’s what you get for calling

General Dynamics a fiend.”

Fright dominated, and I fled.

I woke dad, and told him that

Something

Was wrong with mom.

He rose in an all too familiar

Anger,

A similar look on his face

As when he would fix our

Fourth-hand car yet again,

Saying to me, as gently as he could

“Stay here.”

Moments later they both 

returned to their room.

Mom was enraged, 

and saying things I didn’t grasp,

But with such venom 

I felt the world freeze, and

My cold body falling away,

Leaving just my eyes and ears.

Dad replied with something about bed,

Maybe about hospital,

And about scaring the boy.

She lunged at him,

Arms outstretched,

And shoved as hard as her

Unexercised muscles allowed.

He barely moved but to grab her shoulders

And return her to her distance.

She tried again, and he slapped her.
It was an action from old movies,

And TV,

The rational man applying an open hand

To a hysterical woman’s face, all noise,

and no follow-through.

She stopped her violence.

She remained standing,

And returned to words,

“How dare you!?”
and more.

Dad reminded her of how many

Years

It had been since there’d been

Physicality

Between them,

How many years since she had

Attacked him.

And she didn’t dispute it,

Just denied he had a right

To touch her.

But, with words,

he eventually

Sent her back

To my room

And let me stay with him.

There followed avoided questions

About what was wrong with mom,

Answered only with vague statements about

Her being sick.

I accepted there were forms of sick

That didn’t look like the flu.

Terror faded to safe comfort,

And faded further to sleep.

Years later I considered that

At that age, his late 30s,

His physical strength was barely less

Than in the USMC.

He had seen combat, been shot at, 

and shot back.

He could have knocked her down. 

He could have hurt her severely.

He did not.

That was not the only time

She was ever sick.

But it was the only time he ever

Raised a hand to her.

Chris Walters

February 25, 2014