“Yes, baby. I know that. I tried to protect you. But I wasn’t strong enough. I was just a village girl. If I had said anything, you and I would have been thrown out. No one would have believed me. No one would have taken us in. They would have thought I was making up stories. Things like that didn’t happen back then. Or if they did, no one believed it. No one talked about it. But it wasn’t Samson.”
My chest is shattered open, memories flying out like bits of torn paper with the truth written on them. A maelstrom of words flying around my face, a heaving, swirling snowstorm of memory. I’m in the house. It rises up all around me. Dark passages and empty hallways. I’m small again and running from someone whose footsteps thud just behind my fleeing body. But not Samson. Someone else. A hand landing huge and heavy on my shoulder, spinning me around weightless as a top, a blast of arrack in my face. A gasping shudder from deep inside me. My body naming its perpetrator.
Amma is talking. “He touched you. But he never raped you. You know that, right? It was only some touching. I’m sorry. I tried to protect you. So did Samson that night, and then your father went out with the gun and … I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. And now you are the mother of a daughter. I didn’t want to bring up these terrible memories. I was trying to protect you.”
Everything is quiet inside my head. The storm of words and visions subsides into a single point that pierces my chest, reenters. There are no more tears. I force my voice to be calm. “Amma, it’s okay. I have to go, okay? I’ll call you later. I promise.”
And she, lulled by this tone, says, “Okay, baby. I’m sorry. I love you.” I hang up and all my life falls into a different pattern than it had been in before. Everything is shaken and reconfigured at grotesque, unnatural angles. Voices whisper what must be done, what is the only thing. I listen; I am attentive. They make me remember. All those times Daniel hugged Bodhi to him. All those times he went to comfort her and left me alone. It all falls into a different pattern now. I must save her. The way Amma never saved me. But I can save my little girl.
I go to the kitchen and find the pills. Sleeping pills I stored up for all those nights when Samson threatened to come. Their whiteness as pure as the underside of a sea gull’s belly, pills to give me wings, to make me fly. I shake the capsules, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty into the wooden mortar.
Unbidden, the memory of the last Kandyan noble woman comes. She who with her torn ears gushing down onto her sari blouse crushed her children’s heads in a mortar like this one. With a pestle that she had to raise and slam down onto their skulls. Their dulled eyes watched her, their broken mouths did not protest. What had fractured in her, then? Did some crack in her soul reach down through the ages, through the bloodlines of those born in that place, and touch me here now?
I go into her old bedroom and get her sippy cup, come back to the kitchen and fill it with apple juice. I reach for my own water bottle, unscrew the lid, pour in juice. I upturn the mortar into the golden liquid. Two chalices. One for the queen, one for the child. Then I go to the bathroom, wash my face. My eyes in the mirror are clear, are focused. I change into jeans and a sweater; I brush my hair. Purpose is important. It’s the only way I will save her.
There are a thousand demons in the room. I can feel their wings brush my skin, their shadows settling in my hair. They are shrieking in my ear, wrapping themselves in my skin. I put the chalices with their golden liquid in my bag, wrap myself in my big black coat, and walk out into a dawn just lit in gold.
* * *
I knock until the old couple, sleep-faced and in their pajamas, open the door. Daniel’s mom say, “Oh, hi. We didn’t expect you so early. Daniel came in late last night. Shall I wake him?”
I say, “Oh no. I just wanted to get Bodhi. We’re making breakfast at my place. Pancakes.” I’m smiling hard so they don’t see the great gashed tear in me.
The old man says, “But it’s just dawn. Poor child. She’s fast asleep. Maybe it’s better if you get her in a few hours.”
“No, I promised. She’ll be sad if I’m not there when she wakes up.” I push gently past him. I walk through the house and into the room, bend over to kiss her, and she wakes, wraps her arms and legs around me, and says, “Mama?”
“We have to go, okay?”
She nods, reaches down to grasp her Pooh blanket.
The old lady, standing in the door, breaks in. “Are you sure everything is fine?”
“Yes. Everything is completely all right. We just have to go.”
Her heavy little body is in my arms. She is barefoot and in her pink fleece pajamas. I push past their worried faces, out the door, down the stairs into the honeyed light. I walk to the car and strap her tight into the car seat, cover her in the blanket, the yellow bear smiling at me. I tuck the corners in around her knees. Her eyes rake my face, taking in everything, and she knows she’s safe now. I am taking her away from people who could hurt her. Because you never know who could hurt a little girl. Sometimes it’s the ones you trust most. She pulls on a corner of the blanket, feels it between her finger pads, sucks it into her mouth. I say, “We’re going for a ride, okay?” I kiss her temple, inhale her sweet scent. I get into the front seat, start the car, and drive fast across the Bay Bridge; it’s too early for traffic. I’m heading toward the city.
Somewhere in the maze of the city she asks, “Daddy?”
It might have been different if she hadn’t said this word. We might have driven home, the long way perhaps, the scenic way past the Bay. We might have turned around and gone back home. I might have carried her back into the house, put her in her bed. We might have made our way through the world.
But the thing is, she said this word. And it opened a rip in me, some hidden wound that was already hemorrhaging blood. It killed me, this word. It spoke of trust and betrayal. She was asking for her daddy. I was picturing another father and what had been done to me. Her daddy would take her from me. He would call in the evening and say he was filing. He would steal himself out of my life; he would steal her away, forever out of my reach. And she would be a little girl in the world with no one to protect her. Just as I had once been.
I reach into my bag and then back, say, “Here, baby, apple juice.” My shaking fingers hand her the sippy cup. She grasps it with both hands like a squirrel. She doesn’t ask about her daddy again. Maybe she is used to disappointment already. Maybe she’s too small yet to know that love can kill.
I am calm. The pace of the world is slowed, the traffic is easy. A certain grace fills the air. I unscrew my water bottle, raise it to my lips, and then set it down untouched in the cup holder. I will do this awake. Aware. The morning bursts through the sky with ribbons of pink, catching the world on fire. Sunlight slants across the window, strokes my face like a lover’s hand. On the other side of the sky, a bitten moon lingers. I roll the window down as we stop at a light; the birds have started their symphony.
She says, “Mama,” and tries to hand me the sippy cup.
“What? How’s that, my love? It’s just your juice.”
“Icky. Don’t wan it.”
“No, baby, it’s just your juice. Drink up. It’s good for you.” And she, wanting to please, ready to do what Mommy said because Mommy is the sun and she is the smallest flower, listens. This is the bane of childhood, isn’t it? That the small person is entirely powerless, entirely dependent on the large person despite whatever grace the larger might or might not possess.
I watch her face in my mirror, the eyelids fluttering, the color changing, the sippy cup slipping out of her fingers, the lid coming off. I hear what’s left glug onto the carpet. In the rear mirror I see these things: her head lolling, her body twitching and shaking, a milky froth spilling out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes rolling upward once twice thrice, and then her face settling against her shoulder. She is cradled in the car seat like a nut inside its shell.
*
* *
I don’t look in the mirror anymore. I drive along the smooth avenues, past the park. I remember the bison there, trapped in their meadow. Once not long ago they had thundered across this land in the millions; they had been the monarchs of this continent, unrivaled in strength and number. Seeing them cover the earth, in their day, you would have found it impossible to imagine an end to them. Now there are only these few shaggy outcasts in a far field like deposed kings in exile. We had visited them once. We had stood hand in hand and looked at these lone survivors. We had felt sad for all they had lost, but then we had kissed and were again reminded of luck and love. We had felt blessed. I had not known then how happy I was. Now I know. Now I know exactly how happy I had been in that moment.
I drive across the span to the other side. This is the place that has been waiting for me all along. I pull the car into the parking lot. At this time, it is not crowded. Later there will be tourists, but for now they are all tucked into their various hotels dreaming of the sights they have seen in this most beautiful of cities. I almost cry out when I open the back door and see how her head leans, her moon-silvered eyes. I unbuckle the car seat, pull her out of it, her blanket wrapped so very tight around her. I have to hold her close, so very close. She’s like a big doll now. I walk with her head cradled in my palm, held tight and steady against my breast, her sunlit curls bursting forth between my fingers, pulled this way and that by the playful wind.
There are a few people about. The famous red-orange span flies overhead, the tossed sea is below. I linger. On my left, the wide ocean flows. Asia lies that way. Asia like a beckoning glow, far, far over the curve of the earth. The water is full of ghosts; they could claim me and show me how to catch the currents all the way home. All the way to childhood, before cohesion was broken, before skin was split.
One-handed, I pull myself up and clamber across the barrier. We sit on the rim, against the edge of the world; the abyss opens under my feet, the void gapes its toothed maw and cackles. The ocean plays in the sparkling early light. There are voices behind me. I turn and look at suspicious, uneasy faces, unsure whether they are seeing what they think they are seeing, but none coming too close, none bold enough to try and catch me and risk my slipping away from between their fingers. One has pulled out her phone. But there can be no help now.
Samson is here. Looking at me with those eyes, that sad smile. But he means something else now. He’s not the one I have to run from. He nods, I turn away.
It is like being an ant on the side of a mountain. The drop beneath my feet makes my nerves tingle. The wind is pulling at her Winnie the Pooh blanket like a dog nipping and tugging at a bone. I let it go and people gasp as it sails away on the currents of the sky, dipping and rising like a kite, fondled and played with by the affectionate streams of air before it’s swallowed by the smashing waters. I look down and cry out to see her face slumped against my skin, slightly smashed at the edges, her mouth open.
A man is coming closer, trying to talk to me, trying to tell me it is okay, and I know he will soon try to grab at me. So there is nothing to do but release my arm and let her go tumbling toward the waves and then I step out like my father before me, one hand still holding on, everything else bent toward the open sky, and I unclench my hand and am instantly falling, unable to breathe, a panicked sensation of nothing under my feet, no solidity anywhere, just rushing air and the wind thrusting like needles into my skin. The water below churns like heated oil. I am sobbing and gasping against the wind.
What have I done what have I done what have I done?
The black coat billows around me like the wings of the angel of death that used to sit on the roof of our hospital waiting for the souls streaming out of our windows, and now I am streaming down, down toward the rushing, roiling water. Dear god, what have I done? I have killed her.
I am sobbing and gasping against the wind, pain like a bomb through my chest, and the water is rushing up closer and closer and I will hit soon and then I smash through liquid like hitting a brick wall and it is in my nose and mouth and I am screaming and struggling and fighting and flailing and then suddenly silence explodes in my ears, all around me. The waterweed that has existed in my body sucks me down, pulls at every limb in slow motion. I am suspended, all is silence. I open my eyes and see the yellow blanket undulating so close to my grasping hands. And if it is here, then where is she? I turn my head and see my baby girl. She is just inches away from me, her eyes open and staring, their chocolate brown transmuted into deep green in this place, her fair hair streaming, so much longer now, the curls unwound, reach out as if they would twine about me, pull me to her like golden spider webs, but they don’t reach, they only kiss the sides of my face. I stretch my hands out to catch her, but she is just out of reach. She undulates like shimmering ink spilled into water, a gorgeous slow ballet of limbs and movement. She is dancing away from me. There are other forces that want her. They suck her away slowly until she is only a tiny thing so very far away. Then she is gone. I struggle and thrash to follow, but they do not want me.
I am alone.
All around is a viscous, uncanny silence. The hum I have heard all my life, that awful echo is gone. It is all gone: light, sound, pain, time, familiarity. I lie on a bed made of darkness. I have fallen into some other realm, unknown, unseen, and felt only in dream. I float as if I am in amniotic fluid. The void opens around me. I have leapt from the planet. Now there are only fires in the distance, stars burning, silent galaxies slowly, serenely twisting and forming. I am in the grasp of the sacred. I am beyond the reach of my species.
Sunlight drops through the darkness, illuminates thin columns of water like blades come to touch my skin. It gathers about me. The sun god is calling, is claiming, is pulling me up and out of the silence. I don’t want this. I need to stay in the abyss. Instead, the water around me too is churning me upward. I am sucked toward light, and above me there is movement, chaos, noise, and then like a cork popping, I break into air and am surrounded by smashing waves and the implosion of my internals, excruciating, panting terror. I am thrown like a toy through the breaks and then a boat comes and men jump into the water, reach for me, haul me onboard. I am shattered, and one of them leaning over me in his huge white suit, looking down at me with tears in his eyes as he cuts away my clothes, asks, “Why?” and darkness wraps midnight around my head.
Part Five
Epilogue
Twenty-four
I had wanted to die. I had jumped and the water was supposed to take me. But for its own and secret reasons the water did not want me, and so I lived on.
I wake up in a hospital bed, a guard at the door, people coming and going, needles thrust into my arm. The nurse is not gentle. I keep trying to tell her that she is hurting me, but then I realize that she is doing it on purpose. She wants to hurt me. My brain muddled on sedatives swims up to the surface. Why would she do that? What have I done to warrant this? And this question “What have I done?” leads to a room of such horror that I can’t open the door. It is so much easier to sleep. To lie in this slim bed between these cool, clean sheets and sleep.
* * *
Through the drugs there is something gnawing at me. My mind is like a vulture circling; it spots the red ragged thing in the center, but is not able to swoop down and grasp the relevant facts.
In the midst of these days, his face. My love. My lost beloved. He screams and fights. His ravaged frame barely recognizable—the caverns beneath his eyes, the flesh worn, all that solid flesh, all that gleaming muscle has melted away in anguish. This is a wraith of the man I knew.
They have to hold him away from me. “Why! Why? Why’d you do this?” he shouts and sobs. Tears running down his face, he howls, “How could you?” His fists hurl out, itching to make satisfying thuds against my skin. The cops pull him away. They will not give him the pleasure. But they wish for it themselves, to smash my soft face, to let loose a cascade of my teeth, to break my bones. Their job is to pull him away, so th
ey do it, all the while patting him on the back, saying, “It’s okay, man. It’s okay.”
But none of this matters now. The worst thing has already happened.
* * *
I spend a long time in that bed. They tell me I am “lucky,” with their eyes averted. No one will ever look me in the eyes again. They say that I hit the water at exactly the right angle, feetfirst, as if I was sitting. A nurse says, “It’s the only position that wouldn’t have broken you into bits.” They say I survived what ninety-eight percent of those who jump don’t. Human bodies are shattered by that fall. They hit the water with the force of a truck hitting a brick wall. It causes an implosion; organs smash loose from their moorings, ruptured by the jagged edges of broken bones. It is almost always a devastation. And beyond that there are the currents that rip a body miles away in minutes.
What they don’t ever want to talk about: my little girl. She was pulled away by the water. They never found her. She was taken far away from me, from everything she knew. I knew as soon as I jumped that I was wrong. That everything I had thought was wrong. I had been given the gift that exceeded all gifts, the gift of a life had been entrusted into my hands, but I had flung this gift from me into the freezing depths. When the drugs lift and I remember this, I am the most anguished soul in the world. I turn my face to the wall and howl.
* * *
They take the picture from the frame that sat next to our couch. Her head tilted to the side, two tumbles of blond-brown curls, the pink T-shirt, the tiny denim jacket. I remember dressing her that morning. Toweling off her wet limbs, combing her hair into these two fluffy ponytails. We had laughed that day. It had been a good day. We had loved each other. All these things no one else can know. She was only mine then. Now this picture is everywhere. Now she belongs to the world.
* * *
Outside the trial there are a blur of faces, open mouths, screaming voices. People have brought blown-up posters of me with her on my lap, the word Murderer! scrawled across our faces. A child holds a poster that asks, “How could you kill a baby like me?” Her mother grips her arm. A man waves a sign that reads, Justice for Bodhi Anne! Everywhere my girl’s face, her eyes, her lips, that pink T-shirt and denim jacket. The policemen drag me, my toes stumbling against the steps. I think, Look, Bodhi girl, look, they’ve come for you because they love you. So many of them. They love you. I have to smile and hear a hail of clicking cameras. They’ll publish these pictures with captions that read “Baby-Killer Mom Shows No Remorse; Smiles Outside Trial.” I don’t care. It doesn’t matter now.
What Lies Between Us Page 22