11. Marie
11
MARIE
GRIEF
A baby cries.
It gets louder.
I don’t understand where it’s coming from. My body refuses to move for a second, then I manage to open my eyes. My lashes stick together, mascara caking at the corner. I’m in my bed, in the same clothes I was in earlier today. My tongue is thick in my mouth and if I could tear my eyes out to calm the raging headache, I would.
The cries intensify and it’s like they’re in my brain. I turn to my side and press myself up, going to Ember’s crib where she’s yelling at the top of her lungs. The clock on my nightstand indicates 4:30.
“I fed you three and a half hours ago, Bibi.” No one told me a three day old baby eats every three or four hours. If I’m lucky. But Ember refuses to take the bottle from anyone but me. It’s like she chose me. It hurts as much as it soothes.
I take her in my arms and stick my pinkie into her mouth. Her greedy mouth immediately starts sucking but I know I only have five minutes before she figures out no milk is coming out and into her small belly. On silent steps, I make my way down the stairs and into the kitchen where I prepare what I need to feed her.
Then I sit on the Chesterfield chair in my dad’s office, the door closed behind me. While she drinks, Ember looks at me with wide eyes. They’re a pure green, exactly like my sister. Like me. My throat clogs but tears won’t come. I’ve shed enough to last me a lifetime. I’m dry. I wish I could cry. Then maybe the pain like a stab wound that festers in my chest would disappear. I hold a three-day old life in my hands and all I want is to die.
When she’s done, Ember falls back asleep on my chest. I listen closely to her tiny breaths, her fast heartbeat under the hand I placed on her back almost a lullaby. But sleep doesn’t come for me. It’s been three days since Lisa passed and I’ve barely slept four hours a night. I miss my sister. I miss alcohol though I don’t want to, but sweat drips down my spine at all hours of the day and my muscles tingle with need throughout the night. My hands have started to tremble and that damn headache won’t leave me in peace.
I avoid mirrors. I know what I must look like. The ghost of my sister.
The sun rises on the horizon and a soft knock echoes through the wooden door of the office. “It’s almost time,” my mother says behind me as she approaches. Her hand on my shoulder is heavy like an anvil. “How is she?”
“Hungry every three or four hours. But healthy otherwise.” I hand her her grand-daughter who still sleeps soundly.
“Lisa was a hungry baby when she was a newborn,” she says and I grimace, then she swallows thickly. My mother’s coping mechanism is the need to talk as much as she can about Lisa but I’d rather never hear her name again. How she bears to talk to me after I kept Lisa’s illness a secret is beyond my comprehension. I don’t know if she forgave me or can’t stand to lose two daughters, maybe.
I know my mother won’t ask about me. For three days, I’ve watched the members of my family sidestep me, avoid me. I think they’re afraid of what I will answer. They leave me be. They let me grieve on my own while they talk in hushed tones behind my back. Nothing new but somehow worse. And I deserve it.
“You need to get ready, Mimi,” my mother says.
“Don’t call me that,” I spew at her.
“Marie, I?—”
I raise a hand to cut her off and walk to the decanter on the vintage alcohol cart, pouring myself a heavy dose of whiskey and swallowing it in one go. The sweet burn in my throat is familiar and I almost moan, relief spreading in my system. My sister Lana enters and eyes me with judgement behind her eyes. “Don’t,” I challenge.
“It’s a bit early, isn’t it?”
“I think I’m allowed to drink on my sister’s funeral day.”
“She was my sister, too.”
“But she wasn’t your twin. She wasn’t your everything.”
She looks like I slapped her, pain etched into every corner of her delicate face. I hate who I’m becoming even more than who I was before Lisa died. Didn’t think that was possible.
I hold my arms to my mother. “Give her to me.”
She hesitates and I see red. I understand her concerns. I just drank a big gulp of alcohol but to me, it’s too little. It will barely take the edge of when I’m in front of the grave and I have to watch as they lower a white casket into the ground. “Give her to me,” I repeat, an edge of violence on my tongue.
Rationally, I understand that my mother is trying to protect Ember. But I’m not rational. I’m heartbroken and ready to jump from the Sant Armellu Cliffs. Maybe it’s best that Ember stays with my mother.
“Go get changed, Marie. We’ll be here with Ember,” Lana says with authority.
I clench my jaw but ultimately, I obey.
It takes me longer to put on the black dress that was Lisa’s favourite while she was pregnant. I was three sizes bigger than my sister so it actually fits me quite well. It’s tight at the chest and flows right underneath, ending directly above my knees. The round pouffy shoulders give it an elegant finish. I don’t bother with makeup, taking Lisa’s heart-shaped black sunglasses instead.
When I make my way to the office again, Angèle and her husband are there as well as my father and Lisandru. They greet me—except Angèle—but once again, no one asks how I am as they turn their attention back to Ember who blinks at them as she’s passed from arm to arm. I want to gouge their eyes out. It should be me holding her but I made an obvious mistake. For the first time in a while, I regret that glass of whiskey.
The air in the room is putrid with pain. I’m surprised no one seems to smell it.
Finally, Ember is placed into my arms again and I take a deep inhale against her head. She smells like pure joy and baby formula instead of everyone’s grief. Standing up, I brace for the next few hours.