Hence These Tears

Your earliest memory dates back to your fifth birthday.

The sanctuary you called home was awfully small back then, but so were you. Decorations had been kept to a minimalistic degree, typical in the banners and balloons tossed and taped around whatever surface that lay still enough. There weren’t all that many safe from your prying grasp. It must have been a tough, tedious task for your parents.

You remember there being a single window shrouded off to a corner in the kitchen. The words Happy Birthday were streaked onto the spotted pane in a coarse coat of green paint. It was a sloppy job, but in the way the sun had shone through so smoothly, illuminating the inside with a soft, subtle shade; you could look past the crooked letters.

Your mother—how beautifully she stood there, bathing in what vivid viridescent light that passed on and through. With a hand in your hair and the other stroking the bump of her belly, she smiled. It was contagious amongst the three of you.

He was there, too.

As they set out to collect the day’s groceries, you found great interest in the idle pebbles littered amongst the paved pathway. You nearly tripped over your little feet with each kick, but a hand was there, wrapped around your own to keep you steady. Looking back on it now, you can’t recall whose hand it was. Just that it felt familiar. In modest moments, those instances of intimacy were all that you had cared for.

The farmer’s market was only cheap because your father had a way with words. He would often work around the price of produce with a half-hearted haggle. And it was always too early in the morning for anyone to care. You wouldn’t come to realize why he had cared so much until a few years later; the term financial hardship had only just been adopted into your mental dictionary. You never asked for much anyway.

Despite it being just out of season, your father managed to snag a box of cherries. They were dark and incredibly plump, some with withered stems and others without. You remember the way one smushed between your little thumb and forefinger as you picked it out of the box. You hadn’t meant to ruin it, but the beautiful contrast of its red juice against your pale flesh entertained the possibility that you likely did.

It was spoiled; a bittersweet taste on your tongue that you went on to swallow once or twice until the box had found a place in a trashcan down the path, emptied. Your stomach suffered in silent aches all throughout the rest of that day.

You were so young then, they must have taken you out to play sometime after. The further fringes of the public park were vast, verdant fields that you had run around in until collapsing, exhausted. There never was a second body just as small as your own to lie in the grass with you; to pant profusely as your breaths fell in sync with one another.

It was only ever the three of you.

There weren’t any presents besides a homemade cake. You hadn’t expected much, anyway. There was a life blooming inside your mother’s belly, and at one point, you thought that it was as good a gift as any. She told you it was a boy. In a few months, you were going to be an older brother. That smile on her lips, how sure she sounded…

The paint never washed off the window. They kept it up for the next day, then the following week, and the month after. Sometime in that frame, it had begun to crack. Little green flakes were littered onto the window sill. You would play with them when the days seemed too long, which became more often than not.

Your mother lost the energy the scrub it off, and your father took to his workplace like a second home. When they were both swept away by the lines of life, you would draw circles in them and pretend that it was your father’s ashes. He tried not to smoke with the baby coming, but sometimes you’d catch him late at night when you stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water.

He would sit there by the window, puffing clouds into some old newspaper, and you’d stay for a moment to watch the smoke disperse into the cool night air. Your mother never found out. Not that you were all too good in keeping secrets, she was just too busy resting in bed. You often looked forward to the mornings when you’d bring her breakfast.

Those were the days when she could still manage a smile.

As time passed on, you would see little and less of her face. It was only when your father left the room for a quick moment that you fit an eye through the small opening of the door and watched. Her hair would be tangled up at the back of her head. Sometimes she’d twist and turn, and it was only then that you would notice how much flatter her stomach had gotten.

It couldn’t bulge up from beneath the sheets anymore. You always wondered what happened, where the baby had gone, but their voices were only ever above a whisper. The obscurity hardly brought any sleep to your head. And it was during one of those restless nights that you walked in on your father in the kitchen; legs stretched out onto the table as he leaned back into the chair, a still cigarette lit between his lips.

His eyes were lost someplace. You didn’t know where, but it looked to be so far away. You caught sight of a torn envelope on the table where the ashtray sat. A letter lay beside it with the label you recognized to be the hospital; some detailed report with the word intrapartum stillbirth imprinted one too many times. You kept a recitation of its spelling looped in the back of your mind.

When you went to school the next day, you gave each letter to your teacher and asked what it meant. The usual sparkle in her eyes had softened as she gave you a small, tight smile. The guidance counselor explained it over a talk with your parents. You remember the way home, how your mother stared down at you in scorn, how your cheek had stung red for that entire week.

The sanctuary that you once called home grew to be nothing more than a stale, small space. It took two years for your father to welcome another member to your family. She named it Green, after its eyes that had glistened beautifully against its spotted grey coat.

You only ever caught the furry thing with your mother. It would roll onto its back, her hand would come to caress its belly, and it would pur with pleasure. She spoke to it—to him more than she did to you or your father. The bowls were always to the brim with food and water. You often found yourself saving the school’s lunch to eat once you got home. There wasn’t a moment where you would find her hands free from its fur.

You made do with nothing.

It hadn’t taken long for you to realize that she loved it more than anything. Your father made an effort to reassure your doubts. He told you that it carried the soul of your brother and that she only cared for it just as much as she ever did for you at such a tender age. You figured that with time, she would grow tired of such a sly thing.

On one fateful day, you remember how warm its life had felt against your own; how its eyes—even after death—seemed to glare at you with such brilliance. You hadn’t meant to hurt it, but the graceful contrast of its vigor upon your stale skin supported the speculation that you did.

She could no longer bare the sight of you.

At home, the expanse of its walls grew further as you did older. On the afternoon of your thirteenth birthday, your father had walked you home from school. You thought it to be an unusual thing. He hadn’t done so since you were six. With a quick turn, he led you to the park where you had once worn yourself to weariness in. He set down his briefcase and pulled a baseball out from his suit pocket, and threw it toward you.

Aimlessly, it fell to your side and bounced away half-heartedly. You stared down at it, then to him, then to the sharp grass that prickled against your ankles. Not a moment longer, your father picked up his briefcase and started back towards the house without a word. The rest of that evening carried on in silence. You laid in bed that night and awoke the next day, friendless.

You forgot the sound of her voice.

For the longest time, you wondered if the apologetic notes you slid under her door would do any good in restoring the relationship. Your thoughts would wander to her hands; if they trembled at all when she held it or when she tore them apart. The door to her bedroom was never left open wide enough for you to tell. At some point, your father had stopped trying, too.

He would sleep on the couch for days on end. The cushions had flattened down with the imprint of his body. You would check its progress of deterioration each day until it could no longer bear the weight of another night. Your father soon found quick comfort in cheap hotels.

Even if you weren’t all that parched, you’d find yourself stumbling sleepily into the kitchen and staring out the window. The ghost of a cloud would hang still in the air and burn the tip of your nose, but it just wasn’t the same as with him.

You remember an odd girl who always wore the same green bowtie in her dark hair. She followed you into high school, and it was only then that you found the nerve to ask why. With a dull stare and prolonged pause, she said that it was all she had left. You never understood what that meant.

Her name was Noire. She had eyes just as bleak as the expression she wore, but sometimes they would shine for you. You thought it to be the strangest thing only because she reminded you so much of your mother. You wondered if their voices sounded similar at all; if her eyes had grown to be dark and dreary, too. Sometimes, you’d catch yourself at the foot of her bedroom door, a fist raised to knock so that you may ask.

It only ever fell back down to your side.

Noire didn’t have any parents. She told you one time after school, as the two of you gazed upon the green fields with homework sheets resting on the bench, forgotten. She hadn’t a clue of what happened to them either. She lived with her aunt and uncle, and they were kind enough so that she wouldn’t care to ask. Although, she wondered what it was like.

You remember feeling ashamed. There wasn’t a proud answer you could give with your mother confined to her bedroom and father occupied with work. You considered lying. Even then, you didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t feel pity. She couldn’t sympathize, but she had placed a hand over yours and laid her head on your shoulder. She said that it was ok.

By then, the concept of love had been estranged from you for eleven years. When you finally realized, it was all too late. Her aunt and uncle left for a land of better opportunities. Noire promised to come back after a few months; when she would finally be of age. You must have been torn to threads about it because she left you her green hair tie. You kept it in a small pouch of your backpack and forgot about it after two years.

You remember how your father came home one night and slept on the floor. The next morning, your eyes caught the shine of a golden band around his finger when he handed you an envelope. Over the course of his hotel stays, he had gotten quite close with the desk lady. They were getting married. You asked about your mother, but he kept quiet. He planned on staying with that woman and her young daughter.

They needed a man in the house. He said he was sorry for not telling you sooner and wished you luck. When he left for the door, he turned back around and told you that he was proud. You never knew what for. The envelope had enough cash for a month’s worth of groceries. You tried not to think much of it.

Even as you stopped at the foot of her door once more, a hand latched onto the knob. You stood there for a moment to collect yourself, to gather some sense of reasoning. As you pushed through and stepped inside, you were greeted by the subtle sways of green velvet curtains dancing amongst an absent breeze.

You wondered how long.

Thoughts were estranged from you. You hadn’t known what to expect in the first place. The letters weren’t there, piled up in shreds by the doorsill. You wondered if she took them or if your father had trashed them after he found her missing. It would have been nice to ask him before he left; if he knew all along that she was gone.

They had left you alone with a life, yet no will. You can’t remember ever bidding the space goodbye. There was an ad in the newspaper for a free room in exchange for labor. It was in the inner city, hidden between one too many secluded alleyways and littered lots. Not that you minded at all; Boris was a patient brute. He owned a butcher shop with a flashy green sign that was great for laundering. Your only job was to carve, not chat.

For a few years, you played nice and kept quiet. Even when the cows he brought in seemed a little too bulky to only bear meat; when he ran a guy’s face straight into a slicer because he talked too much; when an officer came by to buy a sandwich and possibly your pair of lips. The other men would often tease you for sitting too still, but Boris would come around and put them in their place.

He liked you enough to keep you away from the gruesome ends of his line of work. You appreciated the fact that even with your cold, desolate stares, he thought of you as a boy and wished to preserve that innocence. You never considered leaving. Even after his own men turned him in, you would light the sign up each morning and get to work.

The smell of meat would follow you home when he could no longer. It was during one of those nights, as you stumbled wearily across the street, that another brute passed by and jabbed a knife into your stomach. He said that it was your fault. That Boris was a great man and it was you who stabbed him in the back. You couldn’t understand what he meant, even now.

As you lean against the light post; a persistent twinge aches at your abdomen. You threw a hand over in hopes that the blood would slow down, but it only streams. You watch through lidded eyes, how the subtle contrast of red clashes against the chalky white of the pavement. You watch, with fading breaths, how consciousness escapes your body and floats beside the streetlight that flashes green. And you remember…