Losing Inertia

by VK Gregory

  I had been the only girl with 5 brothers, when I tell people that, people ask if my mother had carried on until she had got me, but no, I was the oldest, and once a year another baby followed, one after another until one awful day when I was alone, my heavily pregnant mother collapsed on the beige kitchen tiles, clasping at her belly in pain.

  I tried to save her, I spoke to her in urgent but hushed tones as I waited for the ambulance, one hand holding hers, watching the thick, dark blood pooling underneath her as she screamed and moaned in desperate agony. She pleaded for release and begged me to help her baby, her baby that she could not stop from coming. And she was born onto the cold white tiles of our kitchen floor. Slithering out, still and silent like gruesome bundle of meat. My mother was unconscious, her eyes fluttering as she lost more and more blood; fighting my revulsion, I scooped up that tiny bundle of blood and flesh, and wrapped her in a tea towel, believing her to be dead.

  But she was alive. I held her silent little body close to mine and a doll-like finger, reached out from within the folds of the towel. She reached out to me and I gave her my finger to grasp. Her grasp was weak, and her body too tiny ever to live. But there was no gasping for air, nor desperate pull of breath to survive, instead she held my finger with all her strength, and in my arms, she simply died. Never taking a breath, but not born still. I prayed the ambulance would come and save her, my sister, but I could only watch as she died in my arms, waiting for an ambulance that would eventually be over an hour late. And I would hand over her still, blood soaked body to them, without a word, never to see her again.

  There was something magical in that tragedy, that tiny, miniature human that only ever met me. That for a couple of minutes, lived only in my world, in my arms. As I stood, holding her close to me, in awe as she lived and died in one breathless minute, my mother bleeding out on the floor beneath me, I saw my mortality. Everyone’s mortality. And the beauty of a mortal life, no matter how short. Because I saw an entire life, lived out before me. An entire brutally short life. Still utterly perfect.

  But what stayed with me, after that, that message, that magic, was challenged in the coming weeks. I watched the slow destruction of my family, the pain of that loss, the short little life that meant so much to all of us. I wanted to celebrate her, she had lived after all, but there was only hurt and pain and grief so painful, so destructive, that it was pushed way into the depth of our lives. Never to be spoken about again. And her magical little life, was lost, suppressed, too painful to talk about. No one wanted to hear my story of her life. Not even my mother.

  And so, I vowed never to have children, so I wouldn’t bring into the world, a child that might never take a breath, or lose something so precious, my life would be irrevocably destroyed. And yet. One day, I wanted them with Daniel. The day I whispered my secret in his ear, the sweetest, most amazing secret any woman can tell. That day he seemed happier than I had ever seen him. I held out my digital pregnancy test that said those words ‘pregnant’ and he smiled and greeted it like an old, much awaited friend, one he had been waiting for since he was born himself. The emotions that overflowed from his beaming face made me fill up with people-pleasing joy.

  In fact, his joy was so great, that in time it began to diminish mine. I felt personally responsible for the wellbeing of this tiny, little growing embryo. First a seed, then a grape, then an orange. It was my responsibility to ensure they survived, they grew strong. I thought of that little life, that little unnamed angel, and I could not see them die. It would be me that would be responsible if they died. And I knew it. So, every day I waited to lose them, waiting to destroy Daniel in the cruellest way, that had destroyed my own family. I glanced down at my stomach, it was concave now, no sign a baby had ever been there at all. I wondered what Daniel thought, what he believed and I knew he was only waiting to ask. But I was never ready to answer

  Daniel came in the door quietly, expecting me to be sleeping in the bed. Seeing me curled up shivering in the chair he gasped,

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked, running to me, lifting me with a groan, yet I could not have weighed much. He put me back in bed and covered me up with the thick blanket, but the cold would not leave. Still shivering I smiled at him, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, not alone,’

  ‘I have to try,’ he helped me to my bed, and said nothing more. But I tried again the next day, and the next, until I could stand up and walk to the chair on my own, even walking around the room to the window and back.

  One evening, I walked down the hall, away from my room. It felt strange to be out and about again, stepping into a house I didn’t know. All around me were the lives of the previous owners. Photos, memorabilia, souvenirs. I stared at them, trying to summon some sorrow or guilt that I was standing in their home. They were most likely dead if I knew Danny, but I couldn’t seem to feel anything. So many lives were ending, so many people had died. What was one more?

  I turned to the chair by the fire, where Daniel obviously spent a lot of time. A stack of magazines gave him away, plus some cigarettes, food, alcohol. I picked up a magazine and stared at the woman on the front,

  ‘What are you doing?’ I dropped the magazine, feeling guilty, and quickly turned to see Daniel. Watching me. I wondered if he had watched me for long.

  ‘Getting strong, just walking around,’ he smiled and nodded,

  ‘I’ll make you some food. I have eggs from the chickens, or pasta again?’ I looked around the room, wanting badly to be back in bed, ‘I could make spinach pasta, it’s full or iron,’

  ‘Good, that will make me strong,’ I shivered,

  ‘You’re going to need it,’

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ I glanced away, thinking about the inevitability of it all, ‘To get stronger,’

  ‘The baby, I mean Katy, if they survived’ and there it was, the question he had been building up to. He wanted to ask, but his eyes were observing me nervously, ‘there never was any blood, but you were so badly hurt, I struggled to feed you. I don’t know, if she or he—,’ I held back tears and smiled, he was trying to break it to me that our baby could be dead, and he was trying to be kind, ‘Maybe we could go to the hospital, I’m sure we could figure out an ultrasound machine,’ he looked so hopeful as he spoke to me, I shook my head at him,

  ‘Daniel, stop. Shit’

  ‘What? The baby—?’ I let out a long breath and closed my eyes, I could not see him as I said this,

  ‘There never was any baby….’

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘What?’ his frown deepened to confusion and fear, furrowing his brow like the darkening before a storm,

  ‘Well, I mean there was,’ I hurried on, ‘for a week or so there was, but then I starting bleeding, I’m sorry,’ I tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came, ‘I just…I’m sorry,’ his eyes widened,

  ‘Why would you lie about that? Why?’ his lip was quivering but I didn’t know if it was anger or sadness, his voice was louder and edgier than I liked. If he became violent, I could not run. I leant forward painfully, trying to avoid his gaze.

  ‘You were so happy; you were just…. ecstatic. I didn’t want to take that away.’

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ a swell of nausea made me sit back. I had to tell him, all of it. ‘I took a pill. To end it,’ I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t even say those treacherous words that came from the life of a stranger,

  ‘Abortion?’

  ‘I was afraid. That was the only time I’d ever seen you happy, but…I couldn’t stop thinking about her, my mother and the baby and the death and I just…I freaked out. I’m sorry, I regretted it instantly, but you can’t take that back once you’ve taken it. I tried to make myself sick, but I read that it’s toxic to the baby if they survive… so I thought maybe I could get pregnant again and I would never have to tell you, but then we ended up here,’ tears slid down scarred cheeks, stinging my skin, ‘Please don’t hate me Danny, I was just scared,’ and he backed away from me,
I turned my face to his and implored him with my scorched face and burning eyes,

  ‘I saved you,’ he said, curling his lip up, part snarl, part revulsion, and my stomach lurched with a familiar feeling. Suddenly our entire relationship seemed clear. The guilt. He always made me feel so damn guilty all the time

  ‘I saved you too Daniel, that’s why I nearly died,’ anger had replaced my fear, and I relished it, it was stronger than fear and regret. Powerful. Stupid.

  ‘Yeah, because I was saving you and that stupid cat, and thinking I was saving our baby,’ I glanced at the cat who was curled up on the chair. Suddenly afraid Daniel would hurt it, I moved closer to her.

  ‘Are you saying you wouldn’t have saved me if you knew I wasn’t still pregnant?’ my voice was weak now; he shrugged and I let the feelings bubble up inside my throat, calling me into action, but all I did was stand there and stare at him, and it all made sense, all my certainty that he would never hurt me melted, draining away like it never existed. The look in his eyes was brutality and lovelessnes.

  ‘Where’s Dean?’ I asked the question that had been lingering on my mind for too long,

  ‘Dean? Your lover?’ his voice was raspy and incredulous,

  ‘He wasn’t my lover’ my voice growled in my throat, but it sounded unconvincing even to me. It felt like a lie, even though it was the truth,

  ‘Yeah well, I’ve no idea, why would I?’

  ‘He went after you Danny, he went after you to kill you after you killed his sister and nephew,’ I looked at his face to see if my words were a shock, but his face was impassive, completely in control, giving away nothing. I searched for a hint of recognition but he didn’t move,

  ‘I didn’t see him. Sorry,’ was he lying. He kept his eyes very still, not blinking, he was too calm,

  ‘And the fire? The one that could have killed me? Why would you even do that?’ I thought for a second he was going to deny it, but he looked away,

  ‘I uh….I never intended to hurt you’ he turned away from me, glancing out the window. He had enough sense to hide the embarrassment, ‘I knew you’d get out, it just never crossed my mind that the smoke detectors wouldn’t work.’ he pressed a hand against the window frame, sighing. ‘I’d never hurt you,’

  ‘But all those people you killed? Why? Why set the fire in the first place?’

  ‘Because of him, and you,’ he shouted suddenly, startling the cat who leapt from his place and dashed out the room, I watched it go, my ally.

  ‘I told you—‘

  ‘And I’m telling you I saw you kiss,’ his face was as scarlet as mine felt. Hot and my burning,

  ‘Once Danny. Just once. It was comfort, not sex. And we stopped and I felt awful, even though I’d left you, because…. because…it’s you and us. And I knew I still loved you. And then you set that fire, killed all those people and his family,’ I stared downwards at the ground, remembering Dean’s pain, ‘I didn’t want to believe you could hurt me,’

  ‘But I didn’t mean to, I meant to hurt Dean, but not you. I thought the fire alarms would go off and you’d get out. I thought he’d try to save his family…’ I sighed dramatically, we were going in circles. I couldn’t even remember how the argument had started, who was the one supposed to be sorry, who was the one in the wrong. Then I remembered the baby. My sin. I had redirected the blame, from me to him. I had manipulated him, like he had always manipulated me. Had it been intentional?

  ‘No one who loved me would take that risk,’

  ‘I was angry, seeing you with him,’

  ‘There wasn’t—‘

  ‘So, you say, but all I knew was what I saw. And then you two went out of sight. What was I supposed to think?’ he rubbed his temples, I wondered if the anger was creeping back,

  ‘I thought I was going to die,’ my voice trembled with the memories of the smoke filling my lungs; he pressed his fingers into his eyes

  ‘I was watching from outside, waiting for you to come out, but when you didn’t.’’ he stopped wide eyed and the memory of the suffocating smoke hit me, the blackness, the desperate need for air. ‘I threw stones at your window, didn’t you hear?’ but I shook my head,

  ‘Right,’ I finally said, pushing down the panic driven by the visceral memory of the fire. I kept my voice calm and in control, I then very carefully walked back into the bedroom, and sitting on the bed, put on my shoes

  ‘Katy?’ I ignored him, struggling to do up my laces as fast as I could, my fingers refusing to work, then I stood up, he reached out to stop me, his hand on my arm, the skin smarted beneath his touch as I shrugged him off, ‘Where the hell are you going? I said I was sorry,’ he shouted, but his voice was not filled with anger, it was laced with guilt and pain and panic. Yet as I opened the front door, my coat half on my shoulder, a well-aimed kick brought it, closed again, ‘hey.’ he shouted, his foot against the door.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ my calm façade was threatening to break, his violence sparked from the fear and glittered through his dark eyes as his face contorted. I faced him with courage, ‘tell me, how many people are dead because of you? Those you killed, those that died in that fire and how did we even get here? To this house?’ For a second he looked petulant, a little boy looking down at his feet with distress and anguish,

  ‘It’s the only wind farm I knew, so we had to travel,’

  ‘Travel how?’

  ‘By car,’ he said cautiously, releasing his foot from the door,

  ‘Right and how many people died along the way,’ I held tightly onto my coat, waiting for him to answer. Instead, he stood back from the door and stared as I bustled through it to the cool dark of the night,

  ‘I had no choice, I had to save you, what was I supposed to do?’ but this time he didn’t try to stop me, he just watched, the fight gone from him. The anger had always been a mask for the fear. And now there was just fear.

  ‘There is always a choice Daniel. Always. And you always make the wrong one,’ I stared past him, struggling with the decision I was making. He shook his head as if disbelieving I would go again, ‘goodbye’ I whispered throatily, and I walked out.

  It was darker than I thought it would be. The road had no street lamps, we were miles from anywhere with only the moon for company. So, I walked down the lane a little, my heart racing at my own bravery, but it was too dark to easily see my way. I wished I had a torch, and warmer clothes, and somewhere to go.

  Heavily, I sat down in the middle of the cold gravelly road and stared up at the perfectly clear almost purple night sky. The moon was bright and big, pearl-like in appearance. The sky had not changed, the scattered stars forming constellations that had been the same for centuries; the moon was the same moon I had stared up at a thousand times over my life. It was the same sky that had watched the destruction of dinosaurs and evolution of humanity and the same sky that had watched humanity stop. And here I was, one of the last three moving creatures on the planet, sitting in a country lane, on a cold night, still hurting from my recent escape from death. Here I was and I was walking away into forced isolation. Infinite loneliness. A tight smile broke through my pain as I thought about that. I observed with detached wonder, that loneliness didn’t hold the same power over me as it once had. I was free.

  Perhaps because something in my heart told me our time here was finite, our existence a mistake, a brief mistake that would soon need correcting. I thought of Daniel, of how I felt when I thought he was dead, of how I felt when I saved him knowing he had survived. I tried to seek that feeling of love again. That inescapable, sacrificial love.

  But it was my truth was inescapable, I could not pretend that he was a good person. Moral. Or even kind. He was possessive, he was dangerous. He killed people.

  I knew I could never pretend otherwise.

  I knew I would save him again in a heartbeat.

  I knew I would die for him if I had to.

  I loved him.

  But the cries of all those he had murdered rung in my ears,
swirling round me like a tornado I could never escape.

  I closed my eyes, my face turned towards the bright moon and a hint of a smile still etched on my face.

  A shadow cast its darkness over me. But I did not turn. I did not need to.

  Daniel sat down next to me on the lane and we stared up at the big silver moon together,

  ‘I wish I was better,’ he started,

  ‘I don’t need you, Daniel,’ I told him not looking over at his face, I felt his body sag next to mine. I turned to him, and I stared at his eyes, ‘I don’t need you, but for some reason, I do love you,’ Our hands touched briefly and electricity passed between us. Some deep part of my moral self, screamed at me in disgust, but I squashed it back down.

  ‘I’m sorry about the baby, I was afraid,’

  ‘Afraid of me?’ he asked softly his voice seemed loud in the night,

  ‘Yes, and of losing you, of your sadness and disappointment. I was afraid of being alone again. But I’m not afraid now. I know that lonely isn’t the worst thing in the world.’ I smiled again, that knowledge like sweet summer strawberries on a cold winter night. He hesitated,

  ‘I didn’t want a baby,’

  ‘You did! You were so happy,’

  ‘I pretended but I was bloody terrified, Katy, insanely terrified. I kind of got used to the idea after a few weeks, but I was still terrified. I would not make a good father’

  ‘Of course, you would,’ I squeezed his hand reassuringly, but my words sounded false even to me,

  ‘Trust me, I’m not fishing for compliments, I would not be a good father.’ I turned to look at him, his face, for once was serious. His left leg jiggled a bit as if was nervous, waiting for the argument he knew was coming.