What Happens in the Swamp
Summary: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.
-10-
Mai's grandfather owned a garden house in a valley, some twenty miles north of the palace. He had bought it when he was young, nurtured it until it flowered into a twisted, colorful jungle, held together with vines and branches; the ambitions of a young general, a gift to his ill wife.
In the center there was a small, flat building, made of concrete and brick, also encased in plants and leaves. He had let us stay there once, on the condition that we take care of the orchids in the back. Mai described that tiny flat as beautiful, sacred. For the entire week we stayed there, all I wanted was her.
She squirmed, sat up. She grimaced; we were being stupid, she said, not yet married. And what did I expect to happen? She held my face, kissed me, then asked me to please sleep on the floor.
I remember the view of the only window; the tiny speckles of light that dotted my bare arms. It's how it always was, I thought. The holes in life, the stretches, the creases, the cuts, the spaces between your fingers when you spread your hand open and hold your face.
It's the only way any light gets through.
We were married six months afterwards. She was pregnant shortly after. I remember coming home and seeing her bent on the couch, a small pool of blood between her legs. "He's dead," she kept saying, and I thought she was talking about the baby, who was only about three months old then. I said, "It was a boy? How did you know? Did they tell you?"
"He's dead! He's dead!"
"How did it happen?"
"They killed him," she said. "They set the garden on fire."
Then I knew she was talking about her grandfather and the forest that had been his paradise. The panic attack had led to the child's premature death.
All things considered, I felt that Mai was more devastated at the loss of the garden than her grandfather. "He's dead," she kept repeating. "He's dead! It's dead! Everything is dead."