See What I Have Done

by Sarah Schmidt

  ‘I is looking upset.’

  ‘I is hungry.’

  ‘I love I.’

  Sometimes I would hear Father talk. ‘It’s as if she’s reverted back to primacy,’ he told mother.

  ‘Perhaps she has still not coped with Alice leaving us?’

  ‘Still. Surely she realises they are not the same being.’

  There was silence between us. Lizzie pulled at my fingers and I knew she wanted me to come undone, give in to her.

  ‘How are you feeling? Do you want to talk?’ I wiped a hair from Lizzie’s forehead.

  ‘When do you think everyone will leave?’ She was annoyed.

  ‘I’m not sure what happens from here.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lizzie watched the door.

  ‘They said Abby died first.’ I wanted to understand the day, how it could have started so differently from mine only a few hours earlier.

  ‘Yes.’ Lizzie nodded.

  There was something bitter on my tongue. ‘They told you?’

  ‘I figured it out.’

  ‘How . . .’

  ‘Quiet. Emma, I don’t want to discuss it.’

  When were we going to discuss it? ‘Alright.’

  Lizzie smiled. I tried to pull my fingers away but she snapped them back. These old habits of ours, the receding and taking, Lizzie the perpetual winner.

  ‘You should rest.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She pushed me away, turned her back and fell into sleep. I watched her for a moment before walking out of the room through to Father and Abby’s bedroom. At the back window I recognised the stoop of a man outside. John.

  I gritted my teeth. He stood near the pear trees with arms on hips. He had a small crook in his spine, a tilted smile and he took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped it across his face. He looked into the sun, wiped his forehead once more. John went towards the front yard, towards the crowd. It was a shock to see him. John’s visits to the house had lessened since Abby arrived, only coming a few times a year rather than every month when Mother was still alive. Each time he visited the household stiffened.

  ‘Good day.’ John would shake Father’s hand, strong-wristed. The men stood on opposite sides of the front door.

  ‘Good day,’ Father would say, wiping his hand on his trousers.

  John would look him over, smile like he had ginger in his mouth. ‘You look well.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Father, a nod of the head.

  The script of loathing. Strangers remembering a past. Once, shortly after Mother had died, I caught Father shaking then stroking John’s hand as if it were hers, as if by doing so she would walk out of John’s body and back into the room. A moment passed. John said, ‘That’s quite enough,’ and Father broke away, returned his hand to his pocket and kept it hidden for days. ‘I forgot where I was for a moment,’ he said.

  Distance longs to change people. I saw it each time John came: every few weeks, every few months, a year. Mouths became thick with lost conversation. I knew that John only visited to stay in our lives. ‘Darling girls,’ he said. ‘I’m most happiest when I see you.’ As a teenager I relished the visits, but as an adult I soon lost interest in his theories of industrialisation, of hunting and butchery and sea travel. ‘You’ve got to let the animal come to you, Emma, always to you.’ There was a meanness to his voice. He stopped bothering to ask me what I was up to, what I liked, as if I was past the age of being enthralling. Not like Lizzie. She was golden all the time.

  Lizzie loved our uncle more than ever, held on to him like a prize. They belonged to each other, Lizzie always the delight. Every now and then they would make fun of me, of how quiet I was, how plain. ‘If she were an ornament, nobody would even notice if I knocked her from the mantel and smashed her!’ Lizzie would say, made Uncle laugh. In those moments I wanted Lizzie to die, never to have existed. But I reminded myself that Mother had given Lizzie to me to love. I would always have to accept Lizzie without hesitation.

  I watched John eat a pear, take bite after bite. His trousers were hitched tight, his long legs creeping out towards the dirt and hard ground.

  ‘Tall like Father.’ I said it without thinking.

  John stood still, inspected the yard with little head snaps before turning his head towards the window. He squinted and smiled at me, waved.

  I pulled away, walked downstairs towards the kitchen. People spoke:

  ‘Are there known family enemies?’

  ‘Claims she was outside. Preparations for a fishing trip.’

  ‘Apparently he was still warm when Miss Borden found him.’

  ‘Looks like a hatchet, the way his face took the blows.’

  ‘Mrs Borden tried to take shelter under the bed when the attack began. Too big to fit.’

  Bile swamped my throat; here were some answers. I thought of Lizzie finding Father: skin peeled to bone beyond bone, the place of nothingness, the place beyond death.

  From the dining room, Dr Bowen brought a chair for me to sit on, placed it near the stove. ‘They’re going to move your father and Mrs Borden into the dining room shortly. Best you stay in here.’

  I didn’t want to sit. ‘Yes, alright.’ I tried to swallow, tried not to think of their bodies.

  ‘How is Lizzie?’ Dr Bowen said.

  ‘Asleep. I think she’s still very frightened.’

  ‘Lizzie witnessed some horrible things. She’ll need extra attention and affection from you.’ Dr Bowen pushed his round-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ How much more could I give her?

  My heart groaned and I thought of Father’s blindness to all my sacrifices for Lizzie: as a teenager devoted to her scholarly pursuits of God while my own diminished; giving up my bedroom; the constant attention; the lullabies at night; the tiring days of listening to her rants; abandoning the life that might have come with Samuel. All of it for Lizzie. My flesh heated. How could Father not have noticed? Always putting Lizzie first, always taking her side, never asking my opinion. It felt wrong to think of these things, to hold grievances while he lay in the sitting room.

  The dining room door opened: feet shuffled, a grunt. My skin flushed then cooled to goosebumps. I was empty. I had wanted to tell Father so much. Maybe I should have been honest with him, told him my real reasons for going to Fairhaven.

  The side door opened. John stood in the doorway, said, ‘Emma,’ and walked slowly towards me, his hands clasped. ‘It’s a tragedy. Just a tragedy.’

  ‘Hello, Uncle.’ I braced myself for his touch.

  John placed his hands on my shoulders, didn’t notice the jump in my muscles, the drag of my feet. He smelled of sweat and chewing tobacco, of sticky pear, of a slight medicinal smell.

  ‘Emma, my condolences.’ John’s voice high-pitched.

  ‘Thank you.’ I began to tire of being the polite one.

  ‘You’ll be staying on, John?’ Dr Bowen said from behind me.

  ‘Of course. I wouldn’t dream of leaving them alone.’

  I was no child. ‘I could manage . . .’

  ‘Nonsense. I intend to stay as long as I’m needed. This is all beyond comprehension.’ John’s head, back and forth in disbelief.

  ‘When did you get here?’ I caught the accusation on my tongue.

  ‘Last night. I thought I would visit your father and Abby while I attended to some business nearby.’ John was a pendulum on his heels.

  ‘Where was Lizzie?’

  He was quick with answers. ‘I saw her at dinner and then she went to visit your friend, Alice. She seemed to be quite upset, actually.’

  ‘Why did you think so?’

  ‘I didn’t think it important to ask. She came home after I went to bed.’ John eyed me, a hawk.

  Nothing was said for a time.

  ‘To think we all had such a lovely time together last night. Now this.’ John shook his head, his voice thick with quiver.

  ‘Yes, it’s hard to believe.’ I wanted to run away. Bile swir
led. I was beginning to sink, waited for it all to be over.

  ‘I’m going to check on Lizzie,’ John said. ‘See if she’s alright.’

  I straightened. ‘No, she’s sleeping. I’ll check her later.’

  ‘I insist. I need her to know that I’m here to take care of things.’ He ran his free hand over hair, smiled.

  I bit my tongue until blood nearly burst. I didn’t want him anywhere near my sister. John headed for the back stairs.

  Dr Bowen said, ‘I’ll leave now and come by tomorrow morning. If anything should happen during the night, send for me.’

  ‘Yes, alright.’

  The sound of men leaving.

  Upstairs slow-moving feet sounded across floorboards, the low rumble of John and Lizzie filled the house. I heard the clock on the mantel, the ticking slower than heartbeats. What was the last sound Father and Abby heard? I sat for a moment and listened: the house seemed to forget that they ever existed.

  The sudden emptiness of bodies, the way the air felt cold, a void. I stood in the kitchen, wondered what I should do next, but all I could think about was what happened that morning: Abby struggling to hide as she was repeatedly hit; the sounds she made as she cried for it all to stop. Lizzie finding Father and then Lizzie calling me home. The police had told me to take comfort in knowing that the house remained a fortress.

  ‘Nobody is coming back for you.’ A voice in my ear. ‘We’ll make sure the house is locked right up!’

  I looked at the officer. ‘Alright.’

  ‘And we have officers guarding everything.’

  ‘Alright.’

  And then the officer walked away.

  I stood still for the longest time, waited to hear Lizzie’s movements. I wanted to speak to her, to go over the events, to understand what it was that Lizzie had seen. What was the best way to console the unknown? I looked at my hands, flipped them over and over and I wondered what I should do next.

  There was a time in my life when I believed I could have a place in the world, that I deserved bigger things than the average young woman because I could imagine an existence outside of Fall River, outside family life. Then I turned twenty-five and everything I knew about myself all but ended. It was the year Father tried to marry me off.

  ‘It’s time you became a wife,’ Father had said one morning, adjusting his black cotton bowtie in the mirror. It was as if the notion had only just occurred to him, that he had become aware that a daughter my age should be palmed off to another man. Up until then Father hadn’t shown a sense of urgency in the matter. Neither had I. I had liked the idea of marriage, liked that it would take me away from the family, from Father, but I wasn’t sure I wanted a husband in the way that I was meant to: living side by side, day in day out, having to abide by what they wanted versus what I wanted. I already had that with Lizzie. I needed something more. If I were to take someone I wanted to do the choosing.

  Father would not allow it. ‘I know who is best for you. You need to wait until you’ve matured to make those decisions.’

  ‘You want me to wait until I’m thirty-six, like Abby did? By your own admission I’m old enough now.’

  He shot a finger at me. ‘Your mother has nothing to do with this, Emma. You mind yourself.’

  Father and his changing. Just like those times he wanted me in school then out. I could see through him, could see that he wanted me around to keep Lizzie in line, to make sure I didn’t live a life he did not approve of. I hated him.

  Father put the word out that I needed a suitor. ‘We’re a fine family to join,’ he said. ‘There will be many fine men to choose from.’ We waited. As it turned out, nobody wanted to marry a Borden. Men didn’t come knocking at our door, did not bother talking to me at social engagements. I hadn’t realised how lonely a heart could become. I put all that behind me, concentrated on how I could make myself happy.

  But Father became impatient. ‘I’ve made contact with associates outside Fall River who have eligible sons.’

  He made me feel diseased. I suspected I would not have much say over who my suitors would be. The more he searched the more I disliked the idea of marriage. Months went by. Then replies to Father’s letters began to arrive, made him smile. ‘Emma! We’ve found someone. A wonderful young man from a respectable family like us. I think it would be good for all involved.’

  I wondered if love would play a part in any of this. ‘What if we don’t get along?’

  ‘You don’t have to. These arrangements are straightforward, Emma.’ According to Father, the marriage would be a business decision. Just like him and Abby.

  Soon the suitors arrived. There was: John, a banker’s son, horrible breath; Isaac, farmer’s son, loved hunting; Albert, doctor’s son, too fascinated with blood; Thomas, too uninteresting to recall; and Eugene, a military son, thought art was a waste of time.

  Months of having to put on a happy face for boring men. I had not liked any of them, could not bear to have them touch me in any way. The only thing I liked was when I was able to get out of the house for outings. Father made them leave a deposit behind each time they took me out to ensure good behaviour and that I would be home on time. The money went into his pocket and the outing would begin.

  Once, Albert took me to Rhode Island to see the Atlantic Ocean, paid Father thirty dollars. A cool, rain-filled day, Albert viced his arm through mine, led me to the water’s edge. I looked out at the ocean, smelled salt and dead fish, thought of taking my clothes off and throwing myself in, for the water to wake me up from this boredom. I tried to think of ways to tell Father that, like the others, this man too was unsuitable.

  Disappointed fathers. The world was full of them. Was I too picky?

  Then there was Samuel Miller.

  Samuel came for dinner, was tall, reeded, had a closed mouth. He presented at our front door, brought with him white, smooth hydrangeas. Petals drooped from the heat. I despised hydrangeas.

  ‘How lovely and thoughtful,’ I said. He smelled of peppered musk, made my knees second-guess direction.

  He smiled, wide beam, sincere. Something I hadn’t anticipated.

  Abby made a dinner of boiled potatoes, swordfish and white sauce, and roasted purple carrots. We all sat down to eat, Lizzie making sure she sat next to Samuel, and Father got down to the business of knowing the young man.

  ‘What do you do with yourself?’

  I cut a potato with my fork.

  Samuel pushed his dark hair out of his eyes. ‘I’ve just finished law school.’

  Father smiled like a child on Christmas Day.

  ‘What are you interested in, Emma?’ Samuel asked.

  My heart pushed against my chest, felt like it would jump out of my throat. Nobody ever asked me a question like that.

  ‘She likes boring things,’ Lizzie cut in. She smiled, eyed me like a jackal.

  ‘Now, now, Lizzie,’ Abby said, calm, a note of happiness. ‘Let Emma answer for herself.’ She winked at me. I wondered if she had only interjected to save me because she liked the idea that this time around, I stood a real chance of moving out, would be out of her way.

  Lizzie didn’t let up. ‘Do you like dancing, Samuel?’

  ‘On occasion. With the right person.’ His eyes my way.

  ‘Maybe you can teach my sister to dance. She has arms for legs.’ Lizzie chuckled to herself, thwomped a chunk of swordfish into her mouth.

  I reddened. ‘Don’t pay attention to her. We usually keep her in the attic.’

  Samuel laughed, pointed his fork at me. ‘Your father neglected to tell me about your sense of humour.’

  What else had been neglected?

  Later, days later and beyond that, there was talk of books, of the wonders of walking for hours to clear one’s mind, of our favourite art.

  ‘My father pushed me into law,’ he told me. ‘I would have preferred to study music.’

  ‘What do you play?’

  ‘Violin. I can’t find the time for it anymore.’ When Samuel
took my hand, he made my skin collapse under bone, bubble back to the surface, lava flow. I could not let go, a twin soul for me. I wanted more from this person. The things we could achieve. I was willing to live side by side. I imagined a new life with him, let myself be in that possibility. Then I let the words escape: ‘We should marry one another.’

  I rushed through decades in my mind: us travelling, me painting in a room filled with violin concerto, us in bed, limbs still knotted together even as our bodies became old. I had to live that life before Samuel had a chance to refuse me.

  But he leaned in close. ‘Alright.’ Then his lips on mine, a first kiss. I wanted more from this person.

  We told Father. Abby held me in her arms, smoothed her hands over my shoulders, made me warm.

  Later that night I told Lizzie she could be flower girl if she wanted. Her folded arms across her chest. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘I would really like you to.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Lizzie sulked out of my room into hers, slammed the door. I went after her and said through the door, ‘You’ll be able to have my room when I move out.’

  Lizzie was the sound of bricks, throwing books onto the floor. I hoped she would get over it.

  The engagement continued. Samuel visited and Father sat in on our appointments, the three of us in the sitting room together, the three of us in the parlour, the kitchen, a stroll down Second Street. ‘I want to make sure Emma doesn’t do or say anything to make him change his mind,’ Father told Abby.

  What had I done to make my father think so poorly of me?

  Then a rare opportunity presented itself: Father and Abby went to our Swansea farm. I invited Samuel over, sent Lizzie off to play with a neighbourhood friend. He arrived, that same peppered musk, and I took him upstairs to my room.

  Once there, Samuel touched my white and gold brass bed, noticed the lilac-coloured ceiling rose above us. ‘I like that you’ve only got one fleur-de-lis in the centre. It’s very refined.’

  I sat on the bed next to Samuel.

  I reached out to him, stroked his stubble cheek, traced my finger over his thick, dark brow. Samuel smiled. I had never touched anyone like that before. The amazement of someone else’s body. He was a tremor underneath my fingers, excitement in the blood.