Blood
Blood is red. Everyone knows that. Blood gives us life and it can even bring rewards- everyone remembers the first time they skinned their knee, crying to mother for hugs and kisses. I sure do.
Blood can be bright, scarlet red as it bursts out of arteries, or rose petal red as it trickles down injured limbs. It can be streaked with pink, the color of a sunset, or deep foreboding red like the sky that warns of a coming storm. It's a shocking color, and it's meant to be. The sight of it triggers some ancient fear in the back of our minds, from a time when we lived in caves, on our wits, and just about anything could kill us.
But blood is only red when it's fresh. When it starts to deteriorate it becomes rusty and ugly and smells of decay. There's no oxygen left, no life, no vitality, and let me tell you, the sight of it can drag you down. You can't be sentimental about it. If you haven't cleaned it up by now then you're in big trouble, because if you leave it too long it gets black like tar and then you're stuck with it. Forever. In your house, on your clothes, and in your soul.
The blood that ran down Mother's knife that wet December night was so red that it made me giddy. I followed it right back to the cabin where there was more of it, so much more of it. Pools of it on the floor, streaks of it splashed up the walls, a river with streams and tributaries flowing across the tiles. The stark contrast of red against white was alarming; and in the middle of this awful tableau the piece de resistance, a crumpled mass of soft, naked flesh. The most avant-garde of artists could not have arranged such a scene if he'd tried- it was chaotic and frightening, the result of a terrible, vengeful act. I clung to the doorway and stared at all the red swirling down the drain. I knew she was dead- how could she not be? There were so many holes in her body that any air I breathed into her lungs would come right back out, mixed in with her bubbling blood. Nothing was ever going to make it better for her. There would be no rewards for Marie Samuels; no amount of hugs or kisses would cure this kind of pain.
But, still. Whoever she was, whatever she was running away from, she had never done me any harm and I wasn't going to make her suffer any more than she already had. I removed her from the otherwise ordinary bathtub that was now the place of her death. I laid her out on the blood smeared shower curtain and wrapped her up in it as carefully as I could. She was heavy in my arms as I carried her out to the car- the only time I would ever hold her. I wished to God that things hadn't happened the way they did- she would have been better off driving straight through into Fairvale. But then I never would have met her, and she was nicer to me than anyone had ever been in a long time. And of course I still had my dreams, where I could hold her any time I liked, and in much sweeter circumstances than this.
I drove her car to the swamp and there was nothing more I could do. To calm my nerves I ate candy, grinding it between my teeth until my jawbone ached. It wasn't a fitting end to her life. She had pulled up in that car looking for some place to spend the night because she was tired, and lonely, and in need of someone to talk to. She had no way of knowing that she would never get the chance to drive it any further, or that she would spend this night, tomorrow night and every night henceforward curled up in the trunk in her watery grave. And me? I had to forget about it, forget about her, just as Mother instructed me to do. Because it didn't matter how lovely she had been, how gentle and misguided and similar to me in many ways, it didn't matter how much I liked her, or whether there was any chance we would have met if only we lived in another place and time. It was over. The deed was done.
Blood is red, when it first hits the air, when there's still hope, still a chance that events can be reversed. But if you leave it too long, if you flail and panic, take leave of your senses, it all becomes too late. The red makes pretty patterns, but that's all it does; it's not good for much else any more. It's awful to say it, but you have to mop up the remains of a person's lifeforce, the stuff that made them talk to you and smile; that led them to a place where they ate sandwiches in the warmth of the parlor on what turned out to be the last night of their life. You have to put it to the back of your mind, clean up the mess, get things ready for another day. You have to do that if you want to survive. You have to let go of what might have been. Because what matters in the end is the blood that connects us, Mother and I, and that blood is thicker than water.
No matter what color it is.