A Touch of Hands
"What can you do on this earth but catch at whatever comes near you, with both hands, until your fingers are broken?"-Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending
Annie Reilly has known the touch of hands. Far too many, yet each distinct.
The meaty, heavy hands of John, hurting and wounding. The not cruel, but indifferent hands of the madam as she paints her face with deft strokes, adjusts her clothes to hide the marks and ready her for the next man. The rough, bruising touch of costumers, groping and grasping. Kate's soft, fragile hands, so alike and yet unlike her own, her fingers twisted into them with no space left between.
Annie has known the touch of many hands, and few of them were kind.
Corky's hands are different.
He gathers her up into his arms, brushes the hair back from her face, and holds her. He doesn't bruise and strike. He doesn't want her body or her life, and he asks nothing in return for food and comfort.
His hands are calloused, skin marred from the scars and broken fingers of too many fights, stiffened from years bent around brass knuckles, but there's a gentleness in their strength, a softness she's never known. These are hands that have cradled a child, sometime before or within the layers of scar tissue formed over his skin and heart. But the hands remember, as if it was only yesterday.
She clings back, sobbing into his shirt, knuckles twisting into the fabric, as he strokes her hair, an aching mix of scars and softness.
Annie has known the touch of many hands, and few of them were kind. But she doesn't forget the ones that were.