This is not a diary. I loath the very thought of compiling my thoughts and actions in a locked book,
secreted away as if they were precious jewels.
I know my thoughts and actions are not precious jewels.
I have begun to suspect them to be quite mad .
That is why I feel the need to record them.
it could be that the re-reading, sometime in the future,
I will discover why these horrible things have befallen me.
Do I want to be cures?
Perhaps that is a question best set aside for the time being.
First, let me begin when everything changed.
It was not on this, the first day of my journal,
it was two and a half months ago on the first day of November.
That was the morning my mother died.
Even hear in the silent pages of this journal I hesitate to recall that terrible morning.
My mother died in a pool of her own blood,
which surged from within her following the birth of the small,
lifeless body of my sister, Lacy, named after mother,
It seemed to me then, as it does today,
that mother simply gave up when she saw that Lacy would not draw breath.
It was the full truth that she could not bear to face father after the
loss of his precious and only daughter.
That question would not have entered my mind before that morning. the
question that most often entered my mind were focused on how I might persuade Mother
to allow me to purchase one of those Russian dolls that iv been wanting for over a year now.
If I had thought of father before the morning mother died, it was as most of my friends (Ludwig, Alfred, Feliciano)
thought of there fathers, as a distant and somewhat intimidating patriarch.(leader of the house.)
In my particular case, Father only praised me through mothers comments. Actually, before Mothers death, he never seemed to notice me.
Father was not in the room when mother died. The doctor had proclaimed the birthing process was to vulgar for a man to witness, especially not a man of importance like Berrit H. Willams, President of National Bank of Chicago.
And me? Berrit and Lacy Willams son. The doctor did not mention the vulgarity of childbirth to me.
Actually, the doctor did not even notice me until after mother was dead and father had brought me to his attention.
" Matthew, you will not leave me. you will wait with me until the doctor arrives and then remain there, in the window seat.
you should know what it is to be a good boy in case your father tries anything. get out when you can get the chance, find someone you love, not by force like your father and I did. in that soft voice of hers, which made everyone who did not truly know her think she was soft headed and no more than a beautiful, compliant bobble on fathers arm.
" yes, mother." I had said with a nod, and done as she had ordered ]. I remember sitting, still as a shadow, in the unlit window seat across from the bed in mothers opulent bed chamber. I saw everything. It did not take her long to die.
There was so much blood. Lacy had been born in blood - a small still gore covered - creature. she had looked like a grotesque broken doll. After the spasm that had expelled her from between mothers legs, the blood did not stop. It kept surging while she had turned her head away from the sight of her bed and, while the doctor and nurse futilely attempted to stop the scarlet river that gushed from her, I gripped her hand and brushed the damp hair from her for head. Through my tears and my fear, I tried to murmur reassurance to her, and tell her that everything would be well ones she had rested.. Mother had squeezed my hand and whispered
" I am glad you are hear with me at the end."
"No! You'll get better mother" I protested
" Sssh," shed soothed. " just hold my hand." her voice had faded away then, but mother's blue eyes, which everyone said looked were so like mine , did not look away from me all the while her flushed face went shockingly white and her breath softened, caught, and then on a sigh, ceased all together.
Id kissed her hand then, and staggered my way back the window seat I had occupied before. I stayed unnoticed by them all as they when on to do the daunting job of disposing of the soaked linens and making mother presentable for father viewing. But father hadn't't waited until mother had been prepared for him. He'd pushed into the room, ignoring the doctors protest.
" It's a daughter, you say?" father had not so much as glanced at the bed. Instead he had hurried to the bassinets, where in lye the shrouded body of lacy.
" It was, indeed, a girl child." the doctor said somberly. " Born too soon, as I told you, sir. There was nothing to be done. her lungs were to weak. She never drew breath. she did not utter one cry."
" Dead ... silent." father had wiped a hand wearily across his face. " Do you know when Matthew was born he cried so softly you had thought him to be a girl." It was silent, no one made a sound, either from not knowing what to say or keeping quiet.
" She promised me an heiress. " he yelled .
I scooted back into the corner of my window and just watched silently.