With my right index finger, I trace along the x-shaped scar where my left hand used to be; where it’s now rounded-off, completely smooth, except the scar, hardened and raised.
Some of the other boys used to talk about the Phantom Hand, how after they had their ceremony on their tenth birthdays, they could still sometimes feel the fingers on their left hand, as if it was never removed. I remember my cousin, holding a needle in his right hand, slowly moving it near his nub, before suddenly wincing away in pain, jerking his left arm back. I felt it, I felt it, he said. It’s still there, he said. But when I repeated the same experiment, there was nothing. I don’t feel anything, I reported, as I moved the needle all the way to the point of my skin, to the scar. Nothing’s there.
In truth, the closest thing I ever felt to the phantom hand is in my dreams. When I dream of my childhood, it’s always there. I hold hands with my mom, I cup sand between both hands and let it slowly run out through the middle. Sometimes I’m an adult in my dreams, though, and the hand is still there, fully intact, a mirror existence, where I have both hands. I run my hands through Rebekah’s dark hair as we lie in bed. I lift my ax to split wood and it feels lighter. I pray with both hands together, like a woman. I hold Jacob up in the air, a hand under each of his arms, like Rebekah does. Then I wake up and the hand is gone again.
This morning, Rebekah is crying again. I sit next to her and ask her what’s wrong but she says nothing. I already know.
Jacob’s been having nightmares almost every night. I tell him that I was scared, too, at his age. I tell him it’s normal to feel scared. I’ve been trying to teach him how to do things with one hand. He hates wearing the practice mitt. He says it’s hot and itchy underneath. I tell him I know, but it’s really the best way to practice.
I watch him climb a tree from inside the front window. He is talking to someone, an imaginary friend. He reaches out slowly to each branch, explaining what he is doing. You have to make sure your foot is completely secure, then you push up and reach out with your arm, he says. We’re going to have to learn how to do this one hand, he said. We, he says.
I heard about this group of people once, who live out somewhere in the mountains and they’ve kept all the traditions, even the ones that have faded from Hope’s Creek over the years. I heard that over there, they go to church every day, and that the women cut off their right hands at the same age as the men do with their left. I wonder how the women over there are able to cook and sew and do the rest of the work that needs two hands.
I wonder if they play guitar like Rebekah and I used to, with the hollow between us, her forming the chords, and me, picking the notes. Watching her fingers, watching her eyes. Sitting so close to each other. It’s been years since we’ve played guitar like that. In truth, Rebekah plays better on her own.
I hear her playing some times, usually at night, when she thinks I’m asleep. I want to sit next to her and put my finger on the strings, but I just listen. Her hands move with so much grace and purpose, finding chords and patterns as if pulled from the air.
The last time I prayed and meant it was when Rebekah was pregnant. I prayed that the baby coming would be a girl. I never told anyone this, and I feel ashamed, even now, remembering it. I can’t imagine Jacob being anything other than the way he is. My little boy.
Sometimes in my dreams I see Elijah, my friend from childhood, again, only I never see his face. He runs with his back to me. Through the fields, then along the creek. He stops to get a drink of water, and finally, I can catch up, but when I do, he is gone. Then I cup my hands, both hands, in the water and take a drink. Sometimes I see his mother there, standing in the water, deep enough for her black hair to float around her. I’ve been having this dream often, lately.
I go to see my dad. He’s working on building a shed behind his house. I have to work up the courage to ask him for advice. Jacob’s ceremony is coming up, I say.
I know, I know, he says.
I think we’re all just a little nervous, I say. Do you remember what it was like with me?
Yeah, I remember, he says, adding no further information. You don’t remember? He asks. Honestly, I don’t, I say. I remember some things before but not the actual day.
That’s odd, he says. I remember my ceremony, clear as daylight. He holds his nub up to the sunlight. I should have prepared you better, he says. All the stuff you’re doing now with Jacob, the thing with the glove, the hot and cold water pain tolerance stuff. All that has to help. We didn’t really have that back then. You weren’t ready.
What do you mean I wasn’t ready? I ask.
Well, I mean…we’ve always done it on the tenth birthday, but sometimes I wonder if that’s the best way. Kids mature at different ages. You were still tiny at that age.
Don’t you wonder if we should do it at all? He just stared back at me.
You have to. Jacob has to, he said. I know it’s hard, it was basically the worst day of my life you’re asking me about now, but you have to do it.
I guess, I said.
Don’t you like your life now? Working on the farm? He asked. You married a beautiful woman, you have a house, you’re a God-fearing man. I feel proud as a father that you have all these things, and of course, I want the same for Jacob.
Did I cry? I asked.
Did you cry? Did you cry? He repeated. It was more like wailing, I had to hold your arm down. We got through it though. I’ll give you that much. But then you ran off that night once we got home. You remember that, right?
I ran off? I asked.
Yeah, I’m sure you remember that part. You scared your mother half to death.
I honestly did not.
We found you at your friend’s house.
Elijah’s house, I asked.
My father nodded.
You and him were asleep on his mom’s lap, one on each side like little kittens, He said. That part always bugged your mom, you were asleep on that woman’s lap. We barely knew her. Anyways, I picked you up, and I carried you home. You stayed asleep the whole time.
But by the next morning, you were fine. It was your mom who was shaken up for a while. The women, they really don’t make it any easier. You just have to remember it’s supposed to be a celebration. Welcoming our boy into manhood. You know these Biblical traditions allow us to live as our free selves.
I know, I know, I said. Matthew 5:30.
I come home and find Jacob asleep on the couch in the midday sunlight. Whatever energy he had summoned this morning ran out. I hear him talking in sleep. I love you, he says, but I don’t know who he was talking to, maybe a friend, real or imaginary, or maybe Rebekah. I know he’s not talking to me, but I said I love you back to him anyways. I pick up his left hand and kiss it.
There are dark clouds in the sky. They look like they’re holding all the day’s sunlight inside themselves. In the backyard, the cherry tree needs pruning. I gather up the branches and build them into a bonfire. They aren’t thick enough logs to save for firewood, so might as well burn them up all at once, other-wise mice will hide in the stack.
Like Jacob, Elijah’s birthday was also in autumn, though I couldn’t remember the exact day. I remember the trees being bare, but there was no snow yet. I remember my grandfather showing me how to chop wood with only one hand grasping the ax. It felt so much heavier, only using one arm.
You get used to it, he said. He asked if I felt the phantom hand. I told him I did, which was a lie. I guess it seemed like what he wanted to hear, but I didn’t feel it. I tried several times to chop the wood, but I couldn’t get the ax to go clean through.
You have to imagine striking the surface underneath the block of wood, the tree stump, he said. Then the ax will go right through it. I tried again, but by this point I could barely lift the ax above my head, using only one arm. That’s okay, you’ll get it, my grandpa reassured me. I started lifting the ax again when I saw my dad running out towards us.
At first, I thought he might be coming out to help me but he was running with such urgency that my immediate sense was that I was endangered, so I dropped the ax to the side. He wasn’t running out for me, though. He was fetching my grandpa. The ceremony this morning, he said. The boy, the boy never showed.
My dad was out of breath. I knew he was talking about Elijah.
Okay, okay, my grandpa said. Slow down.
What happened? I interjected. Where’s Elijah?
Don’t worry about it, my dad told me. Come on Pa, we need you.
He grabbed my grandfather’s arm and pulled him away. Wait here, he told me.
Where are you going? I asked. I was supposed to be a man now too, shouldn’t I come along? I ran alongside them for a while, but my mother intercepted, wrapping her arms around me.
What’s going on? I asked her. My mother, hugging me tightly, that lady, she said. Your friend, and that lady, his mom. They found them in the river.
What does that mean, I asked, they were swimming?
We will pray, she said. She kneeled down, and I followed her. I held out my right hand, and draped it over the nub where the left had been. Like this? I asked.
Yes, that’s fine, my mother said. Just make sure your eyes are closed. I imagined the phantom hand, fingers entwined, and I could almost start to feel it.
Today everything in Hope’s creek looks the same as it did. The ranch, the river, everything. Whatever dies in winter comes back the next spring, same as it was. Only the people change. They get older, they collect scars. I think of how I haven’t prayed in years. I go through the motions at church, but I don’t think these words go anywhere. They just fade away, into the air, never reaching anyone.
I never heard anyone in Hope’s Creek speak about Elijah or his mother again. We’d rather forget, so we forgot.
I remember there was a bonfire that night in the center of town, but only the elders were allowed to go. I could see the smoke from our house. I asked Rebekah once if she remembered that night, or that day. She was only seven years old then, but she told me that she remembered her parents talking about it. It was a friend of her sister’s who had actually found them, the mother and son, faced down, drowned in the river.
Did you know him? She asked me. The boy, he must have been your age.
Only a little, I said, the way you know anyone. I felt ashamed, like I was lying, but this was the story I heard my parents tell. In a way, it was true. They certainly weren’t kin. We barely knew them. That lady. That lady without a husband, consumed by wickedness, and her poor little son. Is it a lie to say I barely knew her? I can’t even remember her name. I remember her black hair. Black hair, same as Rebekah’s, but I don’t tell Rebekah this.
In dreams, I see Rebekah along the river. In the river with me, and Jacob. The river, like my mother’s arms, wrapped around me until I can’t move. I see Rebekah and Jacob, I see them floating away. I hear the sound of the guitar gently being picked.
I walk out of my bedroom, down the hall, to Jacob’s room. He is sitting with Rebekah, and they are playing guitar together, each using one hand. I don’t say anything.
I think to myself that Jacob will become a man, and he will be okay. He will be happy like me, and he will receive God’s blessings with an open heart. A form of prayer. I close my eyes and I’m back in the middle of the river. I try to lift my arms up. The water rises to my mouth. I struggle, but I manage to put my arms up out of the river, into the air. Light is breaking out from the clouds and down onto the river. I ask for something to pull me up.
Kevin Coons is a plant scientist, musician and writer from the central coast of California. His writing has been featured in Press Pause Press, Lakeshore Review, Treehouse LIterary Review, the Steelhouse Review, the Helix, the Cape Rock, Gray Sparrow, Forge Magazine and the satirical website, the Hard Times. He has self-released several albums of lyrically driven folk-rock under his own name. You can find him on instagram @kevin_coons, or on substack, kevincoons.substack.com.
High Horse 