At Daddy’s Hands Read online

  They talked for his entire lunch period. Mike couldn’t jot down his notes quick enough, once he got Tyler to open up. It was as if Tyler kept his emotions locked up tight inside of some safe deep in the back of his mind. Mike could sense how guarded he was. Afterward, they agreed to talk at least once a week during lunch, and Mike even got Tyler to smile on the way out the door when he said, “See ya later, Chatterbox.”

  It was that next session when Mike tossed him that tennis ball and told him to “squeeze the hell out of it the next time you start to feel anxious.” Tyler tried to crush it in his hand when Mike asked him about his relationship with his father.

  “Ally! Hey, Ally!”

  Tyler threw the ball across the hallway at his sister who was laying comfortably reading her new book on her black sheeted and pillow covered bed. The ball bounced hard off her book, then her bed, and her nightstand, jingling her month-old set of keys, before bouncing across some of her drawings scattered over her desk and rolling underneath.

  Her shoulders and book dropped. “What? What do you want, douchebag?”

  “Could you get my ball?” Tyler grinned.

  Ally’s disgusted face made him laugh.

  “C’mon, please?”

  “Get it yourself. You threw it.” Ally slid her long black hair behind her ear, picked up the book from her lap, leafed through the pages, adjusted her head back onto the pillow and kept reading.

  Nikki peeked her bright head out of her room down the hall. She could hear her older brother and sister talking and wondered what it was about. To her, Ally was her idol, and Tyler was her protector. Her blonde hair was pulled back into the ponytail that she had convinced Ally into doing in exchange for a week’s worth of taking out the trash. She wanted to investigate.

  She held onto her diary, trying to save the page as she tip-toed down the hall and into Ally’s room.

  “What do you want?” Ally asked bluntly, laying her book down with an exaggerated huff.

  “What are you guys talking about?” She asked, feeling left out.

  “Nothin’.” Ally said coldly.

  “Well, I think I heard dad.” Nikki’s eyes were big, looking for help, for comfort, or some sort of solution to a problem.

  “Yeah, so?” Ally asked, obviously annoyed.

  “Hey, Nikki!” Tyler called from across the hall, now with his music low in the background. “Will you get my tennis ball? Ally’s being a bitch. A big, fat bitch. Who smells bad. And who no one likes. Because she’s ugly.” He laughed.

  “Shut up!” Being the eldest, Ally used to be able to push her brother and sister around. But now Tyler at fifteen was football big and weight-room strong. She didn’t have the same pull as she used to. So, she just took it out on Nikki.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be doing your homework?” Ally shot at Tyler.

  Tyler looked down at the pile of papers and notebooks on the floor beside his bed. “Maybe!” He yelled.

  Nikki’s eyes were shifting around the room looking for Tyler’s ball as her brother and sister did their usual back and forth.

  “It’s over there, Nikki. Under my desk.” Ally motioned in that direction. “And don’t knock anything off!”

  Nikki walked carefully over to Ally’s desk. Her big sister’s colored pencils were scattered across a new drawing that Nikki hadn’t seen before. Ally, being the artist of the family, would usually show everyone in the house her latest work. One day, Tyler explained to Nikki that it was just her way to gloat, to brag, or to get the attention that she lacked and clearly needed. But Nikki defended her. Nikki thought her work was amazing and loved to see it. She expressed to Tyler that Ally had something to be proud of, and she loved when Ally would share her drawings. Tyler had just smirked, playfully messed up his little sister’s hair, and laughed at how naive she was.

  Nikki started to reach for the drawing on the desk.

  “What’s this?” Nikki asked. “A new drawing?”

  Ally shot up in bed. “Don’t touch that!”

  Nikki’s hand jerked back as if it had scraped against a hot stove.

  “I’m not,” Nikki said innocently. “I just wanted to see it.”

  “Well, it’s not done.”

  “I don’t care. I love your artwork, Ally.” Nikki was standing cautiously at her desk pleading her case with sad eyes.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re amazing! That’s why.”

  Ally set her book down and stared at Nikki’s honest face. She deeply desired to share her work, but compliments from her little sister weren’t as meaningful as those from her mother and father.

  Ally was especially proud of this one. She had drawn it from a dream she had a few nights ago. In her dream, she could see her father standing in the doorway to Nikki’s room surrounded by a black haze. Nikki was asleep in her bed. There was a light coming from her room. Suddenly, Ally became her father. There was a rush of emotions coursing through her mind. She felt ashamed, dirty, embarrassed, angry, and mean. Then, she looked down at her father’s hands and saw that they were covered in blood. Panic and fury woke her up in a cold, breathless sweat. The next morning, she started to draw that scene.

  “Go ahead, look at it. Whatever. I don’t care.” Ally picked up her book and pretended to be reading again as she watched her sister’s face from over the top of the pages.

  Nikki scraped and rolled away the colored pencils revealing the blood-soaked hands outside her room. She gasped.

  “Ally, is this me? Is this my room? Is that Dad?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  Nikki picked up the picture and admired it. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was real.

  “I love it. But it scares me.” Nikki sat it back down and covered it up with a notebook.

  “Thanks,” Ally muttered, a smile creeping at her lips.

  Satisfied, Nikki bent to her hands and knees and crawled halfway under the desk, stretching out to grab the ball that had rolled between the back of the desk and wall.

  The slow, familiar thud of Jim’s heavy steps creaking down the hallway made her freeze.

  What kind of day is he having? Is he in a good mood? A bad mood? Is he tired? I hope he’s tired. Her panicked thoughts tore at her fragile state of mind. She knew that she was in the wrong position if her father walked through the door. She tried to back out quickly but smacked her head on the edge of the desk. The sudden pain stopped her in her tracks.

  Jim’s appearance in the doorway, arms crossed and leaning against the doorframe, cast a towering shadow that consumed Nikki’s body as she rubbed her aching head. Shit. She thought.

  “What are you two lovely ladies doing?” He asked. His attention bringing a faint smile to Ally’s face as she searched his for recognition.

  But Jim’s eyes were fixed on Nikki. Ally watched as he sucked in her adolescent form, his eyes growing softer as she struggled to exit that small space. Ally’s jealousy turned to disgust as she witnessed his eyes studying Nikki’s rear as she wiggled from the desk.

  She squeezed out the frustration in her jaw and shook her head. She knew exactly what kind of night it was going to be.

  “Need some help, Nik?” Jim asked as if they were best buddies. “Need a hand?”

  “No, no that’s ok, Dad. I got it.” She gathered herself to her feet, still rubbing the back of her head and now holding onto Tyler’s tennis ball.

  Jim laughed. “Well look at you all grown up and independent. Before long, I’ll be fighting off the boys with a stick.”

  That comment made all three of his children cringe.

  Tyler paused the m
usic on his phone, “Maybe some catch before dark?” He asked trying to change the subject.

  Jim inhaled, paused, and then released it noisily. “Not tonight, Ty. It’s been a long day.”

  Tyler shrugged, satisfied at breaking his attention.

  Ally perked with the chance to relate to her father.

  “Yeah, me too! You should hear about the day I had, Dad… first–”

  “Not now Ally,” he interrupted. “Just let me gather my thoughts. I have a lot on my mind, right now.”

  This crushed her. She fell to pieces on her bed, sinking into the pillows and out of existence. But no one noticed, he didn’t notice.

  Instead, his head was bent, and he was rubbing his temples with his left hand. He sighed, shifted his weight to the other foot and looked up at Nikki. His right hand could be heard tapping onto the grip of his pistol.

  “Nik, can I talk to you about something here in a bit?” He sounded so casual, so friendly, so endearing. His voice was soft and pitched… gentle, even. A tone that they all had come dangerously to know meant quite the opposite.

  Nikki took half a step back, instinctually, unintentionally. “We can talk right now if you want? Ally won’t mind. Will you Ally?” She asked in desperation.

  Jim frowned. He seemed to take offense to Nikki’s reaction. “No, Nichole. We will have our discussion here in a bit, in my room, like always.” His features turned from soft to hard, from light to dark, from fatherly to demonic.

  Just as instantly as he appeared, he left, strutting away toward his room, loosening his tie and unfastening his belt.

  Nikki looked up from the ground and meet Ally’s stare. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, each understanding the other. Nikki looked out the window, to the tree branches that nearly reached the window’s edge. Ally’s eyes followed. Nikki thought to run, to escape into the black distance. Maybe she could make it to Trisha’s house, or even Mrs. V’s, which was just a few miles into town.

  Ally watched her younger sister, who would be twelve years old soon, question her entire existence. She watched her face turn from despair, to shame, to indignation. She knew her face, her rage, her storm. She understood what she was thinking, because she had been there before, and she watched as Nikki contemplated her escape into the moonlight.

  Ally hung her head, studying her forearm, tracing her own faded scars. Each line an attempt to understand, a jagged effort to let out the pain. Each lingering, red slash an attempt to escape so long ago.

  She shivered and yanked her sleeve down a little further. Her eyes softened as she reached out and grabbed Nikki’s hand.

  Her voice was at a whisper. “Nik, it’ll be ok.”

  She tugged on her arm and stroked Nikki’s hand with her thumb.

  “Do you hear me? We can get through this.” She said a little louder, more convincing this time.

  Tyler’s presence at the door dimmed the hallway light. He stood just inside the doorway, flexing with rage, his arms bulging in his cut-off t-shirt and mesh shorts. They both looked up at him, startled by his magnitude.

  His stone eyes fixed on Nikki – his voice eager and bold.

  “I have a plan.”

  Nikki’s eyes darted up from his chest. Ally snapped and cocked her head.

  “A plan?” Ally questioned. “Seriously?”

  Her sarcasm was easy to read.

  He crossed his arms. “Yeah. A plan. Look, I’ve been doing a lot thinking, lately… and I think the only way that we’re going to get through this is… well… to get rid of… him,” he motioned his head toward his father’s room, “I think that we have to do something about it ourselves. You know? Take charge, create our own destiny, grab the bull by the horns and all that other shit.”

  He looked at the both of them, Nikki nodding her head and at Ally’s scrunched up skeptical face.

  “I’m serious, Ally.”

  Tyler and his older sister had always been in competition with one another. Tyler thought that he was the smart one and Ally saw him as the dumb jock. Ally had the gift of imagination, and she wasn’t afraid to show it. Especially, when Tyler would invite his friends over to play football in the yard. Ally wasn’t much in stature, a slender frame, more elegant than athletic, more princess than anything, as her dad used to call her. But at sixteen, she had already figured out how to work the boys. She would lay out sunbathing while Tyler and his friends played football in the yard. She knew what she was doing, flipping out her towel just close enough to be a distraction and just far enough away to make them more concerned about her two-piece than the football game. Honestly, those boys didn’t stand a chance. Even when Tyler called her out on it, even after he whined that it was his time to hang out with his buddies, she would be out there on a towel in her hot pink bikini top and rubbing on oil for all the boys to see. That was how she filled the void from her father’s attention, which had shifted to Nikki a few years ago. She knew what she was doing, and she loved it.

  Nikki plopped onto the bed beside Ally. Ally may have been more skeptical, but Nikki was analyzing different strategies in her head. Call the cops, run away, run him over with Ally’s car….

  “What kind of plan?”

  Shutting it behind him gently, Tyler sat in the rolling chair at Ally’s desk. He spun around a couple of times playfully, before readjusting himself in front of his sister’s latest drawing: a beautiful blooming rose with a thorny stem and three fallen pedals. He felt out of place. Looking around, he tried to remember the last time that he had actually sat down in her room. It always made him feel uncomfortable, Too much girl, he would tell her: a poster of a shirtless male model’s six-pack abs, one of Justin Bieber on stage reaching out and touching the hand of a girl in the front row, which she had drawn hearts onto a couple of years ago. There were pictures, perfumes, jewelry scarfs, skirts, and shoes… so... many… shoes.

  “Don’t touch anything,” she warned, “I don’t want your stupid to get all over it.”

  Her satisfying smirk made him chuckle. He picked up the rose drawing and rubbed it all over his body, giving it a few extra strokes under his arms.

  “There, now it’s stupid, too.” Grinning victory, he tossed it to the ground like he was “dropping the mic.”

  “Oh my God! You’re so disgusting! You jerk! Get out! Just get out of my room, you nasty… barbarian.”

  She growled and threw her book at him. He caught it against his chest and laughed. He stood up and walked it back over to her and squeezing it tightly when she tried to yank it from his hand, before letting go on her third try and sending her falling back into the pillows.

  He raised his hands as if he did nothing wrong. “Alright. That’s fine. I’ll go. No problem.”

  “Wait! Wait!” Nikki and Ally both begged.

  “Let’s hear this plan.” Ally grabbed a pillow, sat up and leaned over it in her lap.

  Nikki reached out and pulled at Tyler’s arm.

  “Don’t leave. Please. Tell us your plan. Tell us how to get rid of… dad.” Her head dropped. Her voice was desperate. “I’ll do anything, Ty… anything.”

  As the baby sister, Nikki felt left out. Being a few years younger, she still had some growing up to do. She still played with dolls, even though Ally would tease her. She kind of liked the attention from her big sister, but sometimes she was just mean. So, instead of telling Ally or her mom her secrets, she started writing them down in a diary. In short stories and philosophical essays, she would open up about the ugliness of her family, about the lies that they would tell in public, but mostly about the confusion and anger swelling inside of her. Recently, after studying Wolfe and Joyce, she started scribbling poems in her diary. She was a
natural poet, great at describing imagery and emotion through words. She wrote poems that would incite turbulence and tears in the reader. They were strong worded confessionals that brought the reader to understand her chaos and rage when her father forced her to touch him.

  Tyler knelt to his knee in front of the bed, eye level with Ally. Nikki mimicked her older brother. “Alright, but listen… if this is going to work, if we’re actually going to pull this off, then we can’t tell anyone. I mean it. Nobody can know. Not mom. Not your friends, not even Brian. Got it?”

  He stared at Ally waiting for her response. She just rolled her eyes and looked at Nikki.

  “I mean it, Ally. We could… well, we could go to jail for this.”

  “Jesus, what kind of plan are we talking about, here, murder!?”

  Nikki’s big blue eyes snapped toward her sister’s lips.

  “Murder? I don’t want to go to prison!” Nikki looked back and forth between both of them. “But, anything would be better than… his room.”

  Silence set in as all three of them thought about consequences that came with getting rid of their father. Ally brushed her wild hair behind her ear and looked out the window to her left. The leaves were dead or dying. Winter was coming, and the bright colors of fall were fading to brown and gray. The wind gently swayed the maple tree not too far from her window. She watched a yellow leaf, twirl, and glide gently to the ground.

  “Look, we’re not seriously talking about… killing dad, are we?!”

  Tyler was quick to argue his point with wild, exaggerated hands and a low, yelling whisper.

  “Well, what the hell do you suggest?! I mean, c’mon! We’ve all seen what he’s capable of… we’ve all seen how much help ‘the system’ is. What choice do we have left? What else is there to do?”