The Things Unknowable
(by naza)
Disclaimer: All official intellectual properties belong to their rightful owners.
Special thanks to Nail for letting me borrow Tadao, as well as every one of my other friends who beta'd and otherwise encouraged my writing talents.
In the hallway, Derek listened for the breathing and murmuring emanating from beneath his children's bedroom doors, as if trying to use his clairvoyant abilities to see what they were thinking. Kiersey said goodbye to her friend, ending her cell phone call for the night, and everything was quiet, if not for the sounds of white noise and rain radiating from beyond Max's door. Going to the door to the end of the hallway, Derek entered the nursery. The unicorn-themed night light in the corner was the only source of illumination. A mobile hung from the ceiling like a chandelier.
In the oak crib on the left, Derek watched Taissa squirm and coo in her sleep like babies do. He knew that I was still heartbroken after losing a pregnancy the year before Taissa was born. He himself has not healed from it, and also took it as God telling us that we should not have any more children. Taissa was our miracle baby, but Derek was still afraid.
Not for himself, but for his children.
He knew that he could not always protect them from the cruelties of reality.
"It's okay," I said.
Derek turned to me, regarding me with his philosopher's gaze as I smiled slightly at him, as if I knew what he was thinking. He didn't hear me come in behind him.
"We can't always protect them, but they are safe for now."
( o n e )
I initially told no one of my trip to Awapaho to end my life.
I figured that was more information than people needed, and disclosing that information might interfere with my travel plans. People always meant well, but they don't see that when you are seriously distressed and depressed, this seemed the only way to continue, even if for one more day. It can be bloody, it can be permanent. It makes the pain bearable just that much more.
My favorite thing to say in life: "I never liked camping. I once went when I was ten years old, and I couldn't get out of it. Now, I boycott anything that didn't come with indoor plumbing and might involve spiders." I like that quote because it is funny, and because it plays up my prissy and bougie habits and ways of being to an almost satirical level. I was a social media celebrity - a lifestyle blogger - and a mother of two beautiful children. There would have been three, and there was for about eight months, but life doesn't always pan out the way we want it to.
Sometimes it doesn't pan out at all.
Taissa died as a baby due to Sickle Cell Disease. But that's not the reason I ended my life. Or maybe it was? That's the thing about this kind of event. You never know. Hell, I myself can't even pinpoint why. I was in my late twenties at the time, already dealing with Postpartum Depression, and a slowly dying baby, atop my pre-existing struggles. I had always hoped and prayed that I would see Taissa again one day. I never saw my third child in my Heaven, however.
Even so, there seemed to be nothing odd about my desire, even at the age of forty. It seemed perfectly natural to me considering the context. I was bone tired, terminally weary, and death sounded like a vacation to me. A somewhere else, which is all I really wanted.
Much of my family liked to blame Derek, and they still do to this day. I never did, though. When I married him, my mother liked how strong and uncomplicated he was, and my father leveled with him on the commonality of them both serving in the military. Derek believed life should be simple and straightforward, didn't believe in anything other than table sugar and light cream in coffee, drove a well-kept twenty-year-old pickup truck because he didn't believe in touchscreens on the center stack and steering wheel-mounted buttons other than the horn. Before being forced to change by inevitable progress, he even used to keep a flip phone because he didn't believe mobile phones should be used for anything other than making and receiving calls.
It was winter that year, and it was raining as I barreled north on the Cornelius J. Pepper Turnpike to my final destination. It was dark at two in the afternoon, only because the thick rainclouds and torrential downpour blotted out the daylight like it was doomsday. I had to slow down from eighty miles per hour to about fifty five to keep my Willard Terrene from flying off into the ditch and thus ruining my plans. Perhaps if I didn't slow down, and I did crash my car from reckless driving, I might still be here today.
To be honest, I couldn't be alone with my thoughts any longer, I was running. There were things hovering in the aether that I didn't want to remember: the miserable and sick feeling when the doctor told me that an infection caused her renal failure and she didn't have long; the bewildered look in Derek's eyes when I told him; and the sound of my crying baby's voice begging me for comfort that I was not able to give her. I never could have thought I could be so haunted by something so familiar, so beloved as my daughter's voice.
I had long since decided that Christmas Eve would be my final day because it had meaning and beauty. There is a tradition in Awapaho that carolers come from far and wide to stroll the lantern-lit streets until daybreak. All doors were open, and the air was balmy with apple cider and ginger.
I wanted to leave at such a moment, when the world was at its best, when I could offer up my soul to The Gods and say, thank you for everything. It's not that I am ungrateful, and its not that I don't care that I'll be hurting those I love. It is merely that I am no longer capable of joy. I've reached my limit now that everyone else has all the joy they could ever need. My children were almost adults, and set up real pretty with an inheritance and my life insurance policy. They will be fine. And because I will be no longer there, as a constant reminder to Derek of my mistakes and transgressions against him, perhaps he would be so much less conflicted that he could move on with his life. I love all of you, I'm sorry I had to give up on myself like this.
This unwritten love letter would be my only suicide note I intended to leave behind.
The Eve of Christmas dawned bright and chilly, with a snow forecast for early afternoon. I had laid carefully my farewell attire: my ever-reliable, strapless, little black number from Donnatella "FiFi" LeChien herself, the one with the peplum overskirt, and I'd pair it with a black a-line blazer and black red-bottoms. I didn't necessarily want to be macabre, but I wanted to be casket-ready, already donned in my funeral garb; spandex and satin is hard to wrinkle, and black would disguise the vomit or blood. I had already laid out the pills I had saved over the past year, including some of the medications and supplements that Taissa was never able to take because her life was so short. They were neatly placed, arranged in probable order of potency, grouped together into manageable mouthfuls, approximately ten pills per swallow. Counting them one last time, I realized that I had well over five-hundred assorted tablets and capsules, which meant quite a few swallows. I would then wash them down with copious amounts of tequila.
It was like I was simply preparing for a night out on the town, or club-hopping. After dressing for my own funeral, I began applying my funeral makeup. Like the thousands of other times, mornings before work, evenings before dinner dates, I applied foundation to wick some of the oil from my facial hairs, a concealer to give my face that glow, some bold eye makeup, and a deep cherry lip color. It was an odd feeling, this muscle memory doomed to be forgotten when I shed myself of this mortal coil; I had a date with Death, and a date with Destiny.
Fully garbed and ready, I stood before the bed, the pills a perverse place setting. A deep, resonant "BONG" chimed from the grandfather clock in the next room. I had all day to die, but I didn't want to waste time. Death wasn't the easy way out - it was the only way out, it seemed to me, at least, or else I would remain here forever. Riding a sudden wave of energy, I forced myself to commence, despite the fear roiling in my gullet like a smelter of nuclear waste. I tossed back handful after handful, guzzling them down with swigs of tequila.
Half an hour later, and three quarters through the stockpile, I no longer felt any pain, be it emotional from the fear of dying and sadness of hurting my loved ones, or physical from the plantar fasciitis from these damn high heels. My head started nodding in submission, but I slapped my cheeks and chewed on my tongue and dug my nails into my palms until the pain threshold jolted me awake again. Then, I commanded my arms to keep grabbing, my throat to keep swallowing, until finally, finally, finally, I held the very last yellow tablet between my thumb and index finger and washed it down with the very last drop of tequila I hoped that I would ever tast.
My legs slithered from under me, and I pressed my hot, flushed cheek against the cold tile floor, listening to the carolers outside on the streets. I heard my grandmother singing holiday hymns, and at that time, I was too inebriated on hundreds of pills and bottles of tequila to realize that my grandmother died when I was seventeen. My forty-first birthday was in a week right now.
While the carolers and my grandmother sang, I stared at the sunlight outside.
"Kiersey! Max!" I heard myself calling to my children. "Dinner's ready!"
The room was getting brighter.
"We're having broiled salmon, blanched green beans, and sweet potato mash!" I said.
I felt my grandmother embracing me, hearing her say my name, either singing it as a lullabye or crooning as sweet as her ginger snap cookies, which I hadn't had since she passed away in my teens.
"Oh my God, Max! You did another painting?" I spoke as I signed to my son. "It is so beautiful!"
I realized that I didn't want to leave, I told my grandmother.
She smiled, and told me that we had to.
So, I did.
Alright, guys, thank you for tuning in! Any and all engagement is appreciated. Again, this is almost exclusively OC-centric, so I know it won't get too much screentime, but I still thank those who looked me up for this. Directly after this, I will be posting the next chapter, so it's like a BOGO deal here - buy one get one free! Check out the next chapter and leave a review!
Thanks~~!
~Naza