My Mother's Hands

Even inside the little church it was chilly, so I snuggled deeper into my winter coat on the pew. After an entire summer and autumn of coming to St. John's in the evenings, it still felt like an adventure--somehow mysterious!--to be just the two of us in God's house.

"Are you ready?" my mother's voice was thin through the high cold air. "Don't be startled."

And then the music started, rich and a little scary. Even knowing it would come, I jumped. I could barely see my mother, up on the dais, but I could make out the swift sure movements of those hands over the organ keys.

I always envied my mother her hands. Her fingers curved surprisingly, resting on each other in ways my own boring fingers could not. My father said that she'd been scarred as a little girl, in an operation to remove extra fingers. His own were thick, finger ridges calloused smooth from his construction work. I never saw my parents hold hands. It never occurred tome that my mother's hands were anything but special. She never hid them, painted her nails brightly every day. In my adoring eyes, her nail polish was a kind of magic: different colored bottles like jewels, waiting in her drawers for the knowledge of her touch.

God knows I tried to imitate her. I simply could not twist and spread my normal fingers enough to make the music happen. Even after the patient lessons of Mr. Frost, the piano teacher, I never got beyond a stilted Fur Elise. My father stopped coming to my practices, tired of hearing the same ten notes over and over. But worse than that was my mother's forgiving smile. Persistent that I should make my hands useful, though, my mother had made me learn typing. I was the only girl in seventh grade who could type 62 words per minute, or who knew anything about Chopin. I think that's why I love writing, to this day: the one thing I can do to make my hands move smoothly as my mother's.

Colored light from the stained glass windows sparkled and broke on her face, on her moving hands. Today her polish--on her fingers and my young ones too--was a beautiful rose red, in honor of the occasion. It was the last time we would come together to St. John's; the weather was getting too cold to walk, and we still didn't have a car. When I graduate middle school, my father promised we would have enough saved up to buy a used car. Till then, since my mother substituted at my school, and the neighborhood was still nice, it was not unpleasant to walk. And after school, we'd make dinner and come to play the organ. She told me it was her relaxation, playing music. A cocky seventh-grader, I told her I understood, that I knew the kind of stress she meant.

When I was younger, my father used to walk my mother to the church, leaving me with a baby-sitter. By sixth grade though, he was working odd hours building the new post office and my mother walked alone. But I was secretly delighted when the baby-sitter was finally too expensive and my mother took me with her.

A touch on my shoulder nearly scared me out of my skin. It was Mr. Frost, wearing a bright red scarf. He tapped his cane gently on the side of the pew. "Is this seat taken?" he asked politely, taking off his scarf. I giggled and scooted over.

I had always thought he was old--really old, the way only an eight year old taking piano lessons can think of old. He had smile-wrinkles around his eyes, but his face was young. That day, it occurred to me that maybe his cane was something like my mother's fingers: something not age but magic.

He leaned over to me and whispered (as much as anything can be a whisper when there is an organ playing in the building) "I'm glad you never stopped listening, even after you gave up lessons."

I smiled and put a finger to my lips. I remember being impressed when he understood. After all, he was a grown-up, and all grown-ups were dense sometimes.

Together we listened to my mother and didn't say another word.

When she stopped, her hands coming to rest on the organ keys like the end of a wonderful dream, we clapped furiously. It echoed strangely in the little church; my mother started.

"Jack!" Her eyes were wide open but her voice did not sound surprised. She his her hands in the folds of her coat when she stood. "What are you doing here?"

"Listening to you," he said smiling, and winked at me. I laughed at his name, laughed that he'd included me in the joke. Jack Frost walked up and met my mother on the dais, and she looked as fresh and red as if a winter wind had touched her face. I watched him smile at her, saw him help her into her coat, then take her hands in his gloved ones.

They walked down to me half-dancing: his cane bouncing on the dais stairs, her feet remembering their organ-pedal steps. I was glad my father wasn't there, to see such a smile on my mother's face. How many months she made music alone, just waiting for someone to hold her hands.

Joy K. Hoffman