Esme's storyI suppose in a way it's sad that I can't remember my family.I sometimes see flashes and ghosts of faces when I close my hazel eyes… But what else is there to remember?
I know one thing for sure…
The blame is all my own…
I can't remember who I loved back then. I cannot even remember if he died before I did… I just know the pain of his loss.
I was in love… that was certain. But did we love each other? Or maybe I was in love, as Rosalie would have put it, with my situation. I was married at seventeen… to a man whose face blurs behind my eternal eyelids. He is tall… dark brown hair and a strong voice. Not stern. No certainly not… he is gentle and soft and caressing… he loved me. Surely I was in love too?
We were a working class couple, scraping our way across the months…
He was a miner… or something to that effect, a hard worker who came home dirty and tied to the bone. I was a … well a house wife. I cooked for him, putting my heart and soul into his every bite… I took such pride in him… I cleaned, but I remember being helped… my mother must have been with me…
In my blurred human memory, I see our gorgeous little suburban house. It's white with cream knee high fencing and theses silly little pink flamingoes on the patchy green lawn. I planted some daphodills once but when winter came the sow buried them and I never had a chance to revive them...
Is it silly that I want to cry now... thinking of those scraggily little flowers smothered beneath the chocking cold of snow? Or is that human? He took me wonderful places, human places… places I haven't been to since I was that young. Places like the carnival and to silly old dance parties with knee length polka dot dresses and barely heeled white peep toe shoes… I loved those places… And for the life of me I can't remember why…
I was happy… Very happy. Contented with what I had and the love I was surrounding myself with… but I remember a darker part of my existence. The mourning…
We wanted a baby… Me especially. He said we could wait. And I agreed, I wanted to save a little money before we leapt to something… But it wasn't two months after I promised him we'd wait that I noticed I wasn't bleeding…
We were ecstatic, telling everyone. My mother first… Oh- if only I could remember her face… She was a little pudgy… She had amazing blue eyes… And soft hands… Oh mama… I miss you… or do I? Can I really? She was part of another life… Another dynasty from which I have completely removed myself from… As were my babies…
Oh and there were many. The first I lost after four months… the second after six… the last after eight… By the end we had stopped being excited. And each time I realized I had fallen again- I was terrified.
I had convinced myself I was killing them…
I distinctly remember him telling me otherwise… he held me in his work thickened arms and cradled our baby through my stomach. He promised to look after us. Promised me he would take care of our babies. He said we would have so many we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves… He was lovely…
I was definitely in love… I loved him and he loved me… even when I hated myself. And I did hate myself. Many nights when he worked late I would lie in our big cold bed and cry my eyes out, curled onto my side with my legs drawn up against my baby. I promised it I was going to protect it… daddy will protect you. And we'll be happy one day.
It was about six months into the pregnancy when he lost his job. He came home early… too early. I knew something bad had gone down. Either a mine shaft had collapsed or he was sacked. It turned out to be both…
We shoved our way through, having saved just enough extra money to feed ourselves. He worked odd jobs for the neighbors and for my parents…
My father had a farm… or maybe a ranch out in the midlands. He travelled there to work the fields sometimes. Those times where terrible. Alone, cold and with no hope of him coming home to warm me for the next few days. Ironic isn't it that I was so phobic of the cold? And now I don't even feel it…
When he did come back we lived off the earnings for a few weeks though. And he could stay home and help me with chores. We talked allot those days, and about nothing in particular. But it was wonderful.
I went into labor six weeks early, it was the middle of the day, and He had gone out… somewhere. I remember that memory above all others… That and my actually death.
I still can feel the hot flow of blood streaking down my legs… …the weakness in my knees the smell of salt and rust. The bone numbing fear for my child. I passed out on the kitchen floor, limp with terror and cold with fright.
I woke up two days later… My child- my son-, they told me; was unresponsive. They said he was brain dead… his head had gotten stuck in the birth canal and he had suffocated. He was deprived of oxygen for just too long …
Neither I nor they could have done anything to prevent it they told me… But I knew, if I hadn't fainted he would have been able to breath and he would have been ok. I was my fault. My fault he was dead...
They let me hold him… Once. He was pale as a sheet with purpled veins sticking out across his smooth ivory forehead. His hair was black like his daddy's, his tiny hands were fisted. His eyes were closed ever so gently. He could have been sleeping…
But I knew better…he was cold as ice. He didn't move at all. Unnaturally still.
I counted all his fingers and toes. He had ten of each. He had two ears and two eyes, perfectly healthy little arms and legs and a nice straight back. He looked just like his daddy… and mine… I cried again then.
Distraught over my inexplicable crime against this perfect little soul.
It was then that they took him away from me; they stole him from my sob-limp arms and covered his relaxed face with his blue blankie. It was too much for me to bear… how could they have taken him from me? How could I have killed such a pure little thing! I was nearly mad with grief…
I wanted to die... I was heading out of the wing that very morning- when a nurse caught me. She had come over to tell me I wasn't allowed to go home…
Finally my mother came to get me… the first thing I did once she left was burn all the baby stuff. The crib, I threw against the wall until it shattered, the blankets, the toys I ripped to shreds with my hands, the tiny little new born clothes I had knitted for him… I ripped across the seams with a kitchen knife…
My husband came home to find me tossing the little porcelain jar of his ashes into the roaring fire, tears pouring down my face and my fingers bleeding from such an aggressive onslaught.
He fought me for that box, wrestled me to the floor and pinned me down, kicking and screaming like a wounded animal… But he never meant to hurt me.
He carried me forcibly to our bed, pushing me into and gently covering me up… I cried then too…
I can't remember how I got there, but my next memory is of the cliff face… I'm looking down the side of it at the churning waves… I'm frightened.
But I 'm also triumphant. I will see my angelic little son, we'll be together… no one will stop me…I say one last prayer… oh lord of my redemption forgive me for I have sinned… I jump…
I'm screaming right before I hit the waves, my white dress spiraling around my legs and making it impossible to swim or kick… And then there's pain…
I'd hit the rocks… I hear bones shattering and tweaking, but it's as if I'm a spectator… I feel nothing…
And then my memory is blank. The next thing is the pain. The gentle tugging of skin at my neck and then- the soul consuming fire… It lasted longer for me, because I had to heal… I was burning for five achingly long days. Carlisle at my side every minute of it… He whispered how sorry he was…
I screamed very little, mostly I cried… but even that function was disabled…
I kept my eyes closed, afraid to see him; I did not want to view the monster that had done this to me… what a fool I was. After the pain was gone, I lay very still for very long, afraid it would come back…
It never did and after a few hours I opened my eyes and saw Carlisle standing over me, my hand cradled in his.
I loved him from that very moment… and as they say; I suppose, the rest is history…
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