55. Nicola
Nicola
A thudding arrives from a long way off, a perfect faint rhythm. It grows nearer, like a little drum whose beat I recognize. It’s as familiar as a voice. The tump tump tump is in my ears. The sound is so unique, I feel it pulling at me, deep in the core of my body. It’s my sound. Her sound.
My abdomen bristles with life.
Emmy.
My child.
My baby.
The tump tump tump of her inside me pushes through the darkness, a sweeping mass of endless night, until I’m right behind Martha, breathing down the base of her neck. I’m right where she doesn’t want me again, and I know that I need to rejoin the light.
In the darkness, I try to run, my body heavy and slow, like pulling myself through tar. The emptiness does not move. There is only a void here and the thudding of Emmy’s life on the outside hanging in the balance.
I hear my name—not my birth name, but the one Emmy uses for me. “MOOOOOMMMMMM!!!”
It’s then that I know what must be. A tiny pinprick of light opens, and I run toward it, full speed, legs like deadweight in the endless dark.
Voices encircle me—the cackling of my mother’s laugh, the terrorizing voice of my father when his sickness and rage consumed us, my own screams as a child, the sound of hands swatting flesh, dishes breaking, doors slamming, a car engine revving.
The angry sounds chase me toward the light, which is growing now and expanding, becoming a vapor of escape, just out of reach.
I pull myself toward it, the sensation of living coming into my fingers and toes.
I can feel where Martha is now, and the light spreads open, yawning like a campfire burning hotter, brighter, higher.
I see her now, knife in hand. And everything is red, red, red, all around, the stench of bodies and fear surrounding her.
The guilt encircles me and pulls me back. She is me. I am her. Toward the light, I sprint, tirelessly, guided by the heartbeat and the sound of Emmy’s quick breaths. My body plummets toward her, and I scream helplessly in the darkness for this to be the end.
As I approach the light, I can feel her, ready to take from me what can never be replaced. I throw myself into her reeking flesh, becoming her—becoming me once more. Blood of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. I know what I must do.
My hand releases the knife. I pull Emmy up to me and hold her in my arms, feeling her tired, shivering body. She is so much smaller than I remember. For a moment, she resists, then releases into my embrace.
“Mom?” she cries. “Is it you?”
“It’s me, sweetheart,” I tell her.
She throws her arms around me and buries her face in my shoulder. “I missed you so much.” She pulls back. “Martha … she … she …”
I glance around at Bambi and Jason and understand. “Shhh, baby, it’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m here now.”
Emmy releases a tiny sob. “Please don’t leave me again. You promise?”
I stroke her hair back, careful not to touch her scar, and kiss her forehead. She still smells the same to me—the baby in the crib, soft, new, perfect. “I have to take care of this,” I tell her, my eyes fogging. “I have to make this stop.”
Her lip quivers, and I sense that she knows. “I have to stop her,” I say to Emmy. “And there’s only one way I can do that. Do you understand?”
Emmy shakes her head. “No. You can’t. I won’t let you!”
“Listen to me, I have to,” I tell her and take her by the shoulders. “If Martha comes back, she will destroy everything. She will never stop.”
“Isn’t there medication, something you can take?”
I smile sadly at her innocence. I’ve tried all the medications in the world, and it didn’t matter.
Martha found a way. She will always find a way.
I somehow always knew it would come to this.
“I can’t take that risk, Emmy. She’s hurt so many people already, and if she returns, I won’t be able to stop her again. ”
Emmy bawls, her eyes swollen and red.
I hold her and rock her in my lap. Her little sweaty fingers press against my back. She cries quietly. “I will always choose you,” I tell her. “Forever and always.”
Here in the light, things are different now.
I can look at my life without the deluge of anger rising.
I can feel the truth and not want to run in the other direction.
It’s all within me. The darkness and the light.
The ugliness and the beauty. And it’s all okay.
I’m okay. We are okay. Or at least we will be.
Emmy pulls back from me and points to Bambi wilting in the corner. “She’s hurt,” she says simply, and I nod. When I see Bambi lying there, I’m reminded that she’s not the accomplice I once imagined, just a sad and hurting woman who needs help. I have been her, and, in many ways, I still am her.
“We have to act quickly, Em. I need you to drive Bambi to the hospital. You are going to tell them that I did this, understand? I did all of it. You never mention Martha to anyone.”
Emmy nods. She takes out the keys from Bambi’s pocket. They jingle as her hand shakes. “What about him?”
“He’s gone,” I tell her. “You tell them it was me and say nothing else. I will take care of the rest.”
Emmy hugs me, hard this time. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Bambi needs you,” I whisper. “Her baby needs you, too.” I kiss her head and breathe her in one last time. “I love you, baby girl,” I coo to her and resist the urge to hold on to her and never let go.
We help Bambi up and into the foyer. At the door, Emmy and Bambi put on long coats to cover their clothes, caps, and sunglasses.
Outside, I watch as Emmy helps Bambi into the Beetle.
Emmy turns just once before I nod and open the gates.
She mouths, “I love you,” then turns, shades down, and drives through as the lights flash and cameras encircle them.
Inside, door shut, I wander up to the bathroom at the top of the stairs.
Up here, it smells of lavender and cleaning solution—sterile but not unpleasant.
I run the tap and place the knife down at the edge of the sink, the blade glinting at me in the light, taunting.
Bambi’s bathroom has perfect lighting, so I take myself in one last time.
My thin nose, the hollows of my cheeks, now fuller since Martha has been eating. My eyes, determined.
I rinse the knife in the cool water until the traces of blood run off and swirl round and round, round, and round.
I’ve been through a lot, this poor body, this wretched time-worn mind. But I don’t hate myself. I don’t hate what I have become. My reflection stares back at me. Mother, Wife. Woman. I have loved and suffered greatly, and now it’s time for one last act.
Behind my ears, I can hear Martha screaming.
“Quiet, Martha,” I tell her. “You always knew it would come to this.”
Perhaps that is why she lived the way she did. Reckless and wild, as if nothing would ever stop her. Perhaps that is why she was fiery venom and revenge all rolled into one. Perhaps that is why I needed her.
I lean toward the sink and close my eyes, then open them and steady myself, knife poised at my jugular. I don’t want to make a mess. Their carpet is so white up here.
“Too bad,” I say out loud and smile. But I don’t really believe what I’m about to do is bad. Besides birthing Emmy, this release will be the single greatest of my life.
A breath. A single moment of focus. There is courage in meeting death. I think this and smile as I fall into oblivion.