Chapter Text
I shake the bottle and then let a couple of drops fall on the inside of my wrist. The content is warm, but not hot. It's close to perfect. A grunting from the little bed at the back of the other room makes me smile.
"I'm coming, honey." I jump off the kitchen counter where I've been sitting while preparing her evening snack and walk the few feet to her. Looking down at the expectant, bright blue eyes that sparkle when she sees me, my heart fills with tenderness.
"Mama," she gurgles. "Angwy."
"I know you're hungry, baby. Look what Mommy's got." I beam back at her and wiggle the bottle before her. My little Cecilia, my Cece, waves chubby hands in the air and tries to fetch my arm.
"Impatient, are you? Come here." I lift her and she molds into my embrace as I lower us together down on the bed. The night is just right. It's absolutely quiet in the cabin and slightly chilly, but we're good under our blanket. My daughter lies beside me and sighs contentedly as she gulps down the lukewarm contents. I listen to the sound of her swallowing and to the low cracking noises from the tree outside as one of its branches repeatedly hit the far side of the house. I need to cut that thing down one of these days, but at the same time it has almost come to be a friend. Something I recognize, that I can trust to always be there, and that won't hurt me. It's normalcy. One of many things surrounding me that I consider normal, that I need to be normal.
I look at my beautiful daughter and caress her forehead.
Cecilia Joely Reisert.
Joely to commemorate her late granddad, Cecilia because it's pretty, and Reisert… because she is one. She's nothing else, just fully, completely a Reisert, stemming from a long tradition of proud, unyielding women.
Her eyes are drowsy. She'll be sleeping any minute now. I hear a gurgling, sucking noise from the bottle and without looking at it I know it's empty. It falls to the side as she drops it. Her eyelids flutter and I realize that I should have had her eat earlier so that I would have had time to brush her teeth. Now I don't want to bother her in her sleep.
But all in all that’s just a tiny issue, and I know which battles to fight and which to shrug at.
I dip my nose in the angle where her neck meets the shoulder and inhale deeply, relishing her wonderful powdery baby scent. Then I stroke her silky brown hair and smile. This is what keeps me going. This is what makes me want to live.
Cecilia stirs when I get up, but she doesn't wake. She'll sleep solidly now until four in the morning when she'll have her regular night fright, then she'll sleep until eight when we both wake and our daily routine begins again. One day I know I'll have to return to the world. When she’s grown a a little older. When she needs to start socialising with other children When it’s not fair of me to deprive her of her life.
I wash the bottle, scalding water and a little detergent, shake the drops out of it and place it upside down on the counter. Then I dry my hands on the kitchen towel as I stare at the pitch black window, seeing nothing but my own reflection. Anything could be out there. Everything is out there. Like so many times before, I see two gleaming blue eyes before me. Then I blink and they're gone.
I hope that day is still very far away.
Turning off the light, I cross the living room, aiming for my old armchair. Still flowery, still soft. It's been with me for a long time. I didn't take much with me when we moved up here, but this was one of the few objects from my old life that I kept. I have a fireplace. I have a huge pile of books, many of them read once already, or even twice, even more still unread. I have a small house and a huge SUV that’s very, very fast if needed.
I have my daughter.
I don't have a TV, only a radio and a CD-player . I don't have a phone. I'v e made friends with some people that are good to know downtown. The hardware dealer, the grocery store owner, a carpenter and his wife, but they never come here, I've asked them not to and they are still with me because they haven't asked questions. They have no idea who I really am. To them we're just Lisa and Cecilia Reed and we're running from my abusive husband. It's not a lie, not entirely, it's just tweaking the truth a bit.
He doesn't have the right to this child, does he?
He doesn't.
No , he doesn't.
And god knows he is abusive. I clench my teeth at the thought, and then shake it off. Water under the bridge.
My hand hovers over the book that I'm currently reading, but then I look at my journal and immediately stretch to pick it up instead. It's heavy in my hands. Or, no, it's not really heavy, it's the content that's heavy. Sad. Dark as the night outside the four walls that shields us from the cold. Opening the book, I take out the pen from between the pages of my last entry .
' November 10 2007.
He has no right. He has no right to see my baby. Am I afraid of what he'd do if he ever found us?’
I feel guilt. I know I shouldn't, but still I do. Cece will never know a father, she will never experience the close and loving relation that I did with my own dad. But hers is a dangerous creature, not quite human, unreal in his hate and fury. Very unsuitable. I lift the pen from the paper and glance at the shotgun that hangs next to the front door. Always ready, always loaded.
I shouldn't feel any guilt. It's for the better.
' Probably, yeah.'
I have replayed our last encounter in my mind so many times that I don't even know anymore what really happened and what are the fruits of my imagination. Were my wounds real? The bleeding, the bruises and the scrapes. No one ever saw them, did they really exist? He almost killed me, but at the same time I remember such a vivid knowledge deep inside that he wouldn't. That he, in his own twisted way, wanted me. In a sickening, selfish, perverted way. Just not dead.
I remember a lot of pain. A lot . During… and after… I spit blood-tinged saliva, my eyes were bloodshot, I cried from the pain every time I swallowed, and I was sore down there. But I don't remember for how long. I can't for my life recall the details of how he… how we… how he forced me. I understand that he must've… gone all the way. Because of Cecilia. My daughter. She was conceived that night, which is a weird thing, that something so beautiful can come out of something, someone, so awful.
I can't remember. It scares me.
' It would be a disaster. If he knew where we were, if he found us. I think I'd rather kill us both than let him lay his hands on me, on us, again. If I can't kill him first, that is.'
I haven't cried a day since I found out I was carrying Cece. Before that, though, I cried my heart out in my isolation. I was so alone. I didn't want anyone to know of my shame. Once was enough and I couldn't do it again, the whole investigation, interrogation thing.
Does my memory serve me right when I remember regret? The almost palpable pain that oozed off of him late that night… After… That night. The night that divided me into Lisa before and Lisa after, separated me from the living, crushed me. The final pillar pulled out of the already damaged building, like a blast from a bomb, making it topple and fall.
I put down the pen and flick through the pages, quicker past the darker times. I flip back and forth, dreading to catch a glimpse of even one wrong word.
Why do I even do this? Why can't I put it to rest ?
But I know why. I live in limbo. Still. The protective shell I once carried inside me is corrupt and I have built an artificial one, surrounding me and my daughter on the outside, with our move, and our anonymity. I haven't moved on, I've just put the lid on, and I know, I KNOW, it's unfinished. The pain hasn't gone away and I don't know what it'll take, what I'll have to do. I just know I have to keep us safe, and that's all I do, all I can focus on or I’ll shatter.
I don't have to read it. I know so damn well what it says, almost in detail. The first note written some nights later, sleepless nights after Jackson visited me.
Raped me.
I wince just thinking it, just from calling it by its correct word. I wish it hadn't been so. I wish it wasn't true. I still also see the man I first met, the warmth, that tiny flutter in my belly, and it’s so confusing.
' I have been wonded again. Very… very… HE came. With a knife. He cme to kill me. And then he… reped me.'
Yes, that's what it says. I misspelled the words, and even the writing doesn't look like my own, and it was ink and I just couldn't go back and correct it. Instead I turned the page and kept pouring hurt all over innocent white paper. Then there are so many pages with blurry letters, the paper crumpled from dried tears and hasty words. Words about the meaninglessness of it all. Hateful words. The hate towards myself. Wishes of death.
And it goes on and on and on.
Then, a few weeks later, there suddenly aren't. The writing looks like mine again, I write of hope, of a blessing, of a need larger than my misery.
Cecilia.
And she looks terribly much like her father. Beautiful, unearthly beautiful. But it doesn't hurt, she isn't HIM, and she won't inherit anything of his malice because I will pour love over her, and keep her safe and happy. I won't let him touch her, not mentally, not physically. I'll never let him see the beauty his violence created. He doesn't deserve it. He can live in his pathetic existence. I don’t care.
You can't have her.
I stroke the book in my hands as I close it and then let it fall to the floor beside me. Not much is happening. I haven't got anything to write really. I consider it a good thing. I close my eyes and allow my head to fall back against the cushion.
I am so tired.
A piercing yell startles me. Rubbing my eyes I glance at the clock by the fireplace as I rise from the warmth of the chair to look to my baby. I didn't know time had flown by that quickly. Through the window a moonbeam hits a poor plant that I once had the ambition to care for. Now it needs not only caring, but resuscitation. Tomorrow. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Or, well, tomorrow is today.
Cecilia is content with me tucking her in and I fall onto my own bed next to hers, exhausted, sad, my own ghosts haunting me like every night. I can't help it. I still feel his hands on my bared skin. I still see him before me as clearly as if he's standing in the room.
He still hurt.