In the bathtub, I want to float like a witch, but instead I sink like a girl. The water was piping hot just moments ago, steam rising, but now it is frigid and awfully still. I move my body, twitching it around the tub, and no ripples appear.
The pain had eaten my insides away and now there is nothing left for it to eat anymore. At first, laying on top of the cot when it first happened, I howled and howled. I didn’t recognize the sound as coming from me, or as a sound that my body could create. It sounded distant, like there was a wolf calling out to me from a forest somewhere, hungry and scared. I kept screaming my throat raw until I couldn’t anymore, until I just had to lay there, tapping my fingers against the side of the cot, digging my tongue into my cheek.
I demanded that a bath be run for me after the procedure, and one of Matthew’s maids, a pretty, thin creature with hair blonder than mine, quickly did. She helped me undress, her fingers cold as they brushed my skin. I thought she was pretty and in my distress it made me want to claw her eyes out. I have this odd habit of wanting to be the only pretty thing Matthew sees, except for his wife, I suppose.
The wife and boys are on holiday, in a summer cottage. I imagine the children jumping into lakes, whispering at stars, hugging teddy bears with shiny button eyes. I imagine his wife painting her watercolours, humming to herself with her petal shaped lips, kissing the children’s foreheads goodnight. Does she cry herself to sleep? Does she reach across the bed for him, groping, cold, alone? Does she know? Does she care?
Anyways, the bath doesn’t do a damn thing. I thought that the water would clean me but my skin muddied it immediately, and now there’s dirty bathwater sunk into all my pores. I know that I should get out of the tub, call for a maid. But I can’t even lift the back of my head up from where it is resting against the chilly marble.
I want to close my eyes and think of small things, small things that aren’t babies. Like mice with pink ears dressed up in denim overalls, squeaking over even tinier cups of steaming peppermint tea. Or a caterpillar with a monocle and a wheezing cough. I start crying again, and the sunlight streaming in through the window above the bath reflects off my wet lashes and creates a million tiny kaleidoscopes.
I need Matthew to come here already. He wasn’t with me during the procedure, but before it started, he flung the doors open and rushed to my side. He brushed my hair from my forehead and kissed the top of my sweaty scalp.
“Be brave, darling. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Can’t you stay here, with me?”
“No, darling, you wouldn’t believe how busy it all is today. But as soon as you’re finished, I’ll come for you.”
It’s been hours since the thing has been done, and still no Matthew. I tilt my head up and stare out the window. The sunlight is creeping away, and clouds the shape of hands seem to be beckoning the moon. I gnash my teeth together. Where is that bastard?
I brush my wet hair from my face and think that maybe I should’ve just hid the whole thing from him. A wild notion, yes, but fun to entertain in my own head. Maybe I would’ve run away. I have cousins in Scotland, maybe I would’ve lived there and lived a humble life with the baby. But of course, it would never have been possible. Mother would’ve lost her mind if I ran away, and demanded that the cousins send me back. Matthew would’ve grown suspicious of me leaving like that, too, and would’ve sent men looking for me. And how would I make it to Scotland, anyways? I may be rich, but I have no money of my own. Nothing of my own. Well, I did have something, until of course, I didn’t.
When I told Matthew about it, I was worried he’d be angry. But he wasn’t. He was so gentle. He took my cheek in his hand and kissed every tear away, until his lips were raw from their salt. He explained, very slowly and softly, like he had a mouthful of honey, what we had to do. He said that the procedure would be quick, and nearly painless.
I was screaming on that cot for nearly five hours. My skeleton sank into its hard fabric, melted and drip-dripped onto the cold shiny floor. I’m all flesh, now, I think.
I met Matthew nearly ten years ago, when I was seven. This was back when my parents were in love and my sister still spoke to me, back when Aaron, my brother, still came to visit and stuffed my tiny girl palms with caramel sweets and winked. Don’t tell Mama.
Matthew and my father had gone to school together. Matthew was very tall and was the only person I’ve ever met that had green eyes. When I was a child, I thought they looked like peacock feathers. He and my father would sit for hours in the drawing room, their pipes dangling from their mouths, their laughter sharp and loud. I would peer down from the staircase upstairs, trying to piece together whatever it was they were talking about. Clutching the railing with my chubby fingers, I would grow feverish with want.
Matthew would notice me more than my sister. Perhaps it was because of my hair, which was absurdly long since Mother refused to have it cut, because of how golden it shone. It would swish against my knees as I walked. He would dote on me sometimes. Once, he brought me a miniature statue of a pyramid from when he travelled to Egypt. The night before his wedding, when I was eleven, I was so angry that I hurled it into the lake behind my house. The water gurgled as it swallowed. The ripples didn’t stop for hours.
Once, I believe, or maybe I dreamt the whole ordeal, Matthew had read me a bedtime story. He sat at the foot of my bed, his long legs outstretched on the floor, crossed at the ankles, his black shoes that he kept on even inside the house, were shiny from the glint of my lamp. He cupped the book, perhaps a collection of the Brothers Grimm, in his large sinewy hands. His eyes were sleepy, his mouth was slow.
When the story was finished, he closed the book quietly and set it on my nightstand. He leaned over and laid a feathery, fluttery kiss on my forehead. It felt like a hummingbird had landed on my flushed skin. Don’t tell Mama.
Presently, I stare down into the tub. I groan when I notice a blossom of blood trailing from the spot in between my legs. I knock my knees together, and start kneading my scalp with shaking fingers, and then drop my hands back into the water. Everything, even my skull, feels too fleshy.
I should call for someone. Likely, the doctor is still at the house, maybe flirting with the nurse with the chipped front tooth in the foyer. She wasn’t beautiful, I remember, and relax a bit. It is okay if Matthew bumps into her on his way to see me.
I begin to feel lightheaded. The water in the tub begins to move. Small waves start to caress my body, bubbling up against my breasts. The water grows warmer, and I am grateful that my teeth stop chattering.
The blood is turning the bath water a soft, baby pink, the same shade of pink my Mother used to dress me in as a child. I giggle as I run my hands through the water. It is soft, and reminds me of ribbon, unfurling and unraveling against my skin.
The door to the bathroom creaks open and I quickly sink into the tub, frightened of someone seeing me in my state, naked, slicked with bloody water.
“Darling, don’t fear.”
As I rise, the back of my head against the marble, the waves quiet themselves. He is standing in the doorway, smiling, a baby swaddled in his arms.
“Matthew!” I gasp. I try to rise from the tub, aching to run to him, but my body feels so incredibly heavy, and the water is too warm and it grips me, it holds me fiercely.
“Shh,” he says, to me or to the baby, I can’t tell. He walks towards me slowly. His hair is messy, the collar of his shirt undone, his pants unbuckled. His shoes are off, and I see his feet. They look cold.
He kneels beside the tub, and I can see the baby clearer. Again, I try to rise, to sit up, anything, but I can’t. The baby has rosy cheeks, thin blonde hair swirled on its scalp. Its eyes are closed, but I imagine that they are green like Matthew’s. The room begins to tilt, like everything has just been turned to the left, very sharply.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” he whispers.
“So beautiful.” I manage to sob, as the water pulls me under.