But I know who I saw. My mother, not a stranger.
§
The box is half empty now. I should stop. I know I should. But I don’t want to give Rebecca up yet. I don’t want to give up myself yet. I hope she doesn’t hate me for this.
§
I brought pink roses this time. My father gave them to her sometimes. Not often, but enough. When I was a teenager, I finally realized the pink roses were apologies. After I put the flowers in the vase, I turn around. Her eyes are blank; her mouth slack.
I take a deep breath. “We have to sell your house, Mom. I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to, but we can’t afford not to, and I refuse to put you in one of those other places, especially since we don’t know how long you’ll be…here.”
She says nothing. I know she doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but I fight the urge to wither beneath her gaze. After a time, I kiss her forehead and smooth back her hair.
“I’ll see you next week,” I say.
I take her hand. She doesn’t pull away, but I might as well be holding a mannequin.
§
I’m afraid. I’m so afraid. There’s only one petal left and Rebecca and Sarah are coming over today. I should save it for her so she’ll believe, so she’ll save up little bits and pieces and tuck them away for Sarah, but I’m not ready to say goodbye.
Not today.
§
I stand in my mother’s living room, staring at all the knick-knacks and what-nots. For a moment, I contemplate hiring several college students to come in and cart everything away, but then I see the tiny carved lion my father brought back from a business trip to Africa. Sarah loved to play with it when she was a toddler, and I was always afraid she’d break it, but my mother always brushed my concerns away with a small wave of her hand and a smile.
I start with her bedroom, boxing up things to donate and things to keep. In her jewelry box, I find a gaudy ring I bought for her at a school holiday sale and a bracelet of wooden beads Sarah made for her in kindergarten. I run my fingers over them and smile. I can’t believe she kept all this stuff.
A wooden box I vaguely remember seeing when I was a child sits on her bedside table. When I open it, I smell a hint of roses and wave my hand in front of my face to disperse the scent. A diary, like something a teenage girl would keep, is inside the box. Funny, I never knew my mother kept a diary. I sit down on the edge of her bed and begin to read.
§
When Rebecca left, I tidied up. Made sure the laundry was folded and put away. Made sure the necessary papers in my desk were organized so they’ll be easy for her to find. I can feel the memories starting to fade again. No matter how tight I hold on, they slip away.
I know I shouldn’t complain. I’ve had a good life. I married a kind, loving man. I had a loving daughter. I regret I won’t see my granddaughter grow to adulthood, but I’m grateful for the time I’ve had. Maybe I was greedy.
I hope I’m not too much of a burden. It hurts to forget, but sometimes it hurts even more to remember.
§
I put the diary down after I’ve read a few of the entries and scrub my face with my hands. I can’t bear to read any more. Judging by the smell that clings to the wood, the box is where she kept all the petals she’d plucked over the years, but did she really think they were magicked into…something? It explains why she tried to tear apart the roses in the hospital.
How could I have been so blind? How could I have not seen the signs? It’s obvious she knew something was wrong, and she was right about the doctor. I would have insisted she go. No, I would have demanded. If I had, maybe they could have slowed things down somehow. Maybe they could have done something. Why did she hide it from me? Did she think I’d love her any less? Then I think of the vacant eyes. The limp hand.
I cry until my throat aches. How I wish life was a children’s story with magic and a happy ending instead of a memoir of illness and funeral plans.
With tears still in my eyes, I carry the box out to the pile of things to be donated. Maybe the disease made her think it was magic, but all it is now is a reminder of my failure. I tuck the diary in my purse. Maybe one day I’ll read the rest, but I don’t think so. I don’t want to remember a woman rambling about nonsense. I’d rather remember her the way she was.
§
Rebecca,
I know I don’t have long now. My fingertips are cold, and I can feel the pieces of me straining to break free. I hope you’ve found this diary. I hope you’ve read the words. I know it might seem crazy, but trust me. The box works. No matter what you choose to put in it, it will keep the memories tight until you take them out. I’m sorry I didn’t save a petal for you to prove it, but please, you have to believe me.
Memories are the real magic, perhaps the only pure magic left in the world. Hold them tight as long as you can.
Please be kind to the old woman I will become. I have to believe that somewhere deep inside she remembers that you are her daughter and that she loves you.
Love,
Mom
Iron and Wood,
Nail and Bone
A dozen crosses—all wood, all occupied. Nails through wrists and feet. Low moans and whispers. Prayers. The smell of old coins cupped in a palm. The vinegar bite of perspiration. The salt tang of an ocean of tears.
The walls of the room are deep red; the floor black, sloping to a central drain. A woman steps around the crosses, checking wounds and temperatures and IVs.
Death is not the intention. Dying isn’t the point.
Know this: no one will judge you here. No one will judge your need to be here.
§
You don’t know if you’re supposed to explain why you’re here, but you feel the words pushing against your lips, straining to break free. If voiced, will they help? Hurt? Do they even matter?
The woman holding a gown in her hand shakes her head, and the words slip back down your throat. You wonder how she knew. You wonder what she sees in your eyes. You wonder why you’re even here, how it all happened. You never thought you were the kind of person to end up in a place like this.
(Maybe that’s a lie; maybe a place like this is exactly where you knew you’d end up.)
Your hands tremble when you take the gown, the fabric soft against your skin. It feels wrong; it should be coarse, a hair shirt worn for penance, not thin gauze shaped like a chiton on a Greek statue. This gown is meant for poetry, for beauty, not blood and nails. Something inside you twists. It’s not too late.
(It was too late the moment you walked through the door.)
After you’ve changed, the woman nods toward a door. You swallow hard. Force your feet to move. The door makes barely a sound when it shuts behind you.
It’s not what you expected.
(It’s exactly what you expected.)
The crosses have been arranged in a circle. Only one of the twelve is empty. Waiting for you, waiting like a lover with rage for eyes and razors for teeth. You try not to look too closely at the others, but you can’t help it. The nails, the blood, the sorrow. A dark perfume; an invocation in the air; a breathless song of suffering.
You want some sort of validation, some acknowledgment, but no one is paying you any attention, not even the man standing next to the empty cross.
(You can’t bring yourself to call it yours yet.)
As you close the distance, your mouth turns dry, and your heart flutters bird wings beneath the cage of your ribs. You don’t want to be here.
(You need to be here.)
The man’s hands are strong but gentle as he lifts you up, arranges your feet on the tiny platform, and slips the IV needle into your vein with little effort, the bag hanging hidden behind the cross. There are no narcotics in the bag, only fluids to insure you won’t go into shock.
When he lifts the hammer, his gaze finally meet yours. You have the choice to say no, to walk away. When you nod, his eyes hold no surprise, only a weary sort of sadness. Then he presses the first nail agai
nst your skin, brings the hammer down. You close your eyes when you hear metal strike metal, hear a thin scream that doesn’t sound human. The pain is a shock that strips all thoughts from your mind. You didn’t know it would be like this.
(You need it to be like this.)
You open your eyes, see blood flowing from the wound and clench your jaw, sure the red doesn’t belong to you, sure this is some strange mistake, but you won’t say stop. You close your eyes when you see the hammer lift again. It takes longer than you thought it would; it happens faster than you thought it would.
“Be well,” the man says before he leaves the room.
In spite of the pain, you want to laugh. You can’t imagine being well. You can’t imagine anything but the agony in your wrists and feet.
But after a time, you lift your head. Gaze at the red walls, searching for a distraction or perhaps absolution. And then you see the suggestion of faces; look longer and the suggestion becomes something more, a tableau vivant.
A woman cringes in front of a man standing over her, his face contorted with rage, his fists moving one-two-three, and she doubles over, falls, and he kicks one-two-three as if it’s some strange game of sadistic symmetry.
A man finds an empty liquor bottle on the counter and a woman passed out on the floor while a toddler with a soiled diaper sits beside her, crying, crying, crying.
A woman waits with a phone in her hand, pacing divots in a carpet while elsewhere, a man laughs with his wife, sneaking sidelong glances at his own phone when he thinks she isn’t looking.
And when you see your own face, you close your eyes, unable to bear the sight or the shame. With your eyes closed, you can pretend it wasn’t you. At least for a little while.
The ache pulses inside you, a feral child chewing you apart, ripping off tiny bits and pieces and swallowing them whole. You bow your head and weep silent tears that burn and burn and burn.
You don’t want this pain.
(You need this pain.)
You don’t want this pain.
(You crave this pain.)
You don’t want this pain.
(You deserve this pain.)
When the session is done, your wounds are cleansed and bandaged, and you schedule your next appointment.
(Because of course you’ll come back.)
§
The next time, you dare yourself to keep your eyes open, to watch the hammer, and for a moment, you think you’re in a movie. This can’t be you. This can’t be your life. Then the nail slips in, piercing your skin, leaving you open-mouthed and gasping for a reason, a justification. You’re the animal expecting a gentle touch instead of a kick from a cruel owner, a fool expecting things to change.
And you know you deserve all of it.
The hurt travels from wrists and feet, spreads all through your body, until it’s the only thing you’re aware of. This is okay.
(This is not okay.)
The images dance on the wall, blending one trauma into another, and tears come in a rush, hot and hard. You bite your lip to stifle the sound, convinced you’ll never stop crying, never stop hurting, never be anything more than what you are at this moment.
When it’s over, you take a dozen deep breaths, feeling your lungs expand and release, expand and release. Something so simple shouldn’t be so hard.
§
The cross holds a sort of comfort now. A broken and twisted comfort, but comfort nonetheless. You can’t remember anything but the cross, the rough wood against your back, the splinters in your skin. You’ve lost count how many times you’ve been here; you look forward to the first nail, the bite that says you’re here of your own volition.
The pain washes over you—a baptism, a benediction.
You weep openly, loudly, not caring who hears. You know you’re here because of the broken pieces of you, but there’s a sort of safety in this. To glue your pieces back together takes a strength you know you don’t have. It’s easier to stay shattered. To suffer. To bleed.
§
The nails slide into your skin, the blood wells, runs, yet the pain is distant, indiscernible. You shift and splinters dig tiny hollows into your skin, but you feel nothing. You move again, tug your hands against the nails. Nothing.
It used to hurt. You know it did, but you can’t remember quite how. You want to remember, to feel something, anything at all. Does this make you an emotional masochist, needing anguish to feel real, to feel of worth? Does this make you a ghost? Does this make you anything at all?
You try to make yourself cry, but tears will not come. You pray to a God you’re not sure you believe in anymore, and you’re not even sure what you’re praying for. A miracle of hail and healing? A scourge of grasshoppers and plague?
You see the imagery on the walls, all the broken and the lost, but all you feel inside is cold. So cold, so numb, so nothing.
§
He brings the hammer, the nails, and your fingers twitch. Your eyes narrow. Haven’t you bled enough? Haven’t you paid enough? He presses the point of the nail against your wrist, and you yank your arm away.
“No,” you say, your voice thick and rusty.
You don’t want to do this anymore.
(You don’t need to do this anymore.)
You tip your head back and shout to the ceiling, a long, wordless shout as if your soul is raging against the world, raging against some machine of circumstance, against all the poor choices you were too blind to see. But now you see everything in stark detail—the black, the white, the grey. The sharp edges, the quicksand centers, the pretty façades that hide their ugly far too well.
When the echo of your voice fades, the man puts the hammer aside. He smiles. Takes you down from the cross, presses a kiss against your forehead, places the nail in your hand and curls your fingers around it. You can’t speak. It can’t be that easy. All you said was no.
When the door shuts behind you, you take a deep breath. Tears shed the sorrow from your eyes. Your hands are shaking, but you hold tight to the nail. Something to hang the memories from or something upon which to impale them?
Your scars haven’t healed, and they may never, not completely, but you don’t have to be ashamed because they’ll serve as reminders that you were stronger than you thought you were, that your spine may have bowed beneath the weight, but it didn’t break. You’re not sure what comes next, but your feet move forward, away, and you know everything will be okay eventually.
§
A dozen crosses—all wood, all empty. The IV bags hang like abandoned chrysalises. Those who were able to move on have; those who were not were carefully taken down, their wounds cleansed, their bodies wrapped in white, their names remembered or not.
There is always a cross here for you. Pray you never need it. Pray you never understand.
And All the World
Says Hush
She walks down the street, high heels clicking on pavement. Long hair the color of fresh honey, a pink flower tucked behind one ear, and tanned legs peeking out from under a diaphanous skirt. She smiles here and there, and purchases coffee from a corner shop. People stop and stare. She pays them no attention.
Her eyes hold a million secrets and give up none. She could be a model or the girl next door. A princess or a harpy. Like hourglass sand, she slips by, her legs moving in wide strides.
“Beautiful,” an old man whispers. “Like a girl from the forties.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” a construction worker calls out, sweat turning his shirt to dark circles.
She hears only the cicadas buzzing in the trees and the blood rushing through her veins. As she moves, she inhales the thoughts and whispers and turns them inside out. Each one leaves a stain beneath her skin, leaves her ready for dissection. Obsession. Bifurcation into lady and whore. Or madness and love. Her lips, dressed in gloss pink, lift into a smile, or perhaps a cleverly concealed scream.
She moves on. Streets become blocks; blocks become houses stacked up in neat rows with bay windows and w
rought iron gates. Faces peer through the glass, eyes wide and watchful. She drinks in their secrets. All the little lies tucked into back corners and covered with dust. Houses become vacant lots. Broken fences. Shattered glass. Battered men and women in tattered coats, their dirty faces slack-jawed as they wait for time to pass. She takes in the sorrow. The emptiness.
“Spare some change?” one asks.
“Go away. Leave us alone,” another mumbles, her mouth filled with the solemn absence of teeth.
The voices flicker away as she steps through a shadow and into a hidden door. Inside, all is quiet. All is still.
She retreats to a room at the top of a narrow staircase and begins to strip away her glamour. Her heels cease their clicking. Her skirt puddles on the floor. She wipes away a makeup mask of ivory, rose, and grey and drops the colors one by one into a porcelain sink.
What remains is egg-smooth, featureless. She could be an illusion or a shadow seen from the corner of an eye.
When the sun disappears, the girl climbs into a bed, and the world swallows her whole. The sheet flutters down and falls flat, without curve of hip or shoulder to change its shape.
Elsewhere, an old man dreams of tangled limbs and breathless sighs. A construction worker dreams of a girl he once knew, a girl he loved and let go. A homeless man hears the rustle of coins in a cup and wakes to find his cheeks damp with tears.
And cicadas sing beneath a moon the color of cottage cheese.
They Make of You
a Monster
When the footsteps approach, Isabel scrambles to her feet. She staggers; spots of light dance in front of her eyes. Two days without food. Two days without water. She backs up until her spine presses against the stone wall. Tucks her hands behind her. She knows it won’t make a difference.
Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) Page 15
