Chapter 30: Merrigold.
"Do you want to maybe take a walk...?"
I shook my head.
"Just to get some fresh air and stretch your legs."
With my somber face pressed against my pillow, I shook my head.
"Anything you want maybe? I can surely get it for you. Even if it means Faith has to steal from the main house... the fancy white people stuff." My sister in-law joked. I only turned to look the other side.
"You can talk to me about anything, Merri. Anything what so ever. I know this isn't easy and it won't be easy but I'm here for you. We love you, Thomas and James love you and they will be back soon. Everything will be alright."
"I-I'm f-fine." I told her, clearing my throat as I had not spoken in a while. It felt odd, my throat hurt. My tears had dried up, my lips were dry. I licked them feeling the rough patch that had mounted on from my lack of care. My nose was oily, my eyes were dull and gloomy.
"Oh good lord Merri you spoke, I'm so glad. I was beginning to worry. Do you want me to undo these cornrows and make new ones, I know how you love that. Your hair must be long now."
Honestly, I did not care for the way I looked or how my hair looked. It was far from my thoughts.
"I want to cut it..." I whispered groggily.
"What? No Merri, I know how much you treasure your hair. You possibly can not."
With a sigh. "I want to cut all of it. That's what I want."
"If that's what you want then of course but maybe we should leave a tad bit..."
"No... I want to cut it all off."
"Merri you can not possibly wish to be bald!" She gasped with worry.
In my mind, I wanted to be as less attractive as I could possibly be. I wanted to not care. Hair maintenance, was the least of my worries.
So I did.
With bickering from Miriam begging me not to. I felt a lump in my throat as I looked at the reflection of myself on the broken piece of mirror. I could not recognize the woman I had become. My eyes seemed lifeless with each blink. The shape of my oval head reminded me of my early days as a child. I saw her that little girl that ran across the plantation with her brother and bestfriend Thomas. She was so innocent and happy. She did not have much but she was so happy. So naive to think her world would always remained the same and subtle. What kind of misery was this oh God? I asked. Sniveling, I had to look away from the mirror nit because I hated my now baldness but because I hated myself overall. I hated every single thing about myself. I could not dare stare at myself and be reminded of what I had become. A week would never be enough to heal my broken pieces. I wished for a shallow grave right next to my unborn child. A sudden yearn for a mother and a father suddenly revolted within me.
All the unsaid feelings that I always put aside were coming to haunt me. I wondered what my mother was like. What my father was like... would I ever know them? I doubted. Would my life have been different with my parents present? I was grateful for the somewhat good childhood I had with the Cunningham's but the yearning of my biological parents seemed like a close call. I wanted to cry in my mothers arms. I wanted someone to hold me and give me a mother's sweet love and care. At now twenty-four, I wanted my mother. I wished I knew her. Perhaps she would have taught me so many things about men that I will never understand. Perhaps she would have warned me to not entertain the likes of devilish male vertebrates such as him.
I scrubbed and scrubbed with a orange sack. Scrubbed until the marks on my skin were visible and red. I could smell him all over me, no matter how much I tried. His scent was stuck in my nostrils. In that moment, my throat felt dry and I relived it all. His degradation and vileness. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw him... coming for me again. I felt so unsafe, any sound I heard, I turnt my head over to catch a glimpse of any incoming danger. Having not ate much for majority of the time, I could see my collarbone beginning to push out from my flesh. My knuckles, bonier.
It was later in the day when I heard my name being called. I felt my tears immediately begin to fall. Thomas and James leaped their way towards where I was sleeping. I could not recognize their bloody and swollen faces. I felt it fault, this was all my fault. As they both embarrassed me regardless of the visible wounds. Their clothes ripped into a wound of fresh flesh and untreated trauma from whiplashes. A pattern decorated on their once beautiful dark skin. My heart ached, I started all this, brought all this harm upon them. Would I ever be able to tell them of the nights and mornings I had spent being intimate with the enemy. I had brought innocent beings in my web of falsehood and deceit.
"I should have been a better brother!" James cried, I had never seen him cry not ever since we were little. He always tried his best to protect me. It had always been me and him, just the two of us. Our little family, he was my home as I was his. "I will kill him regardless, this is not over. I will murder him for the pain he has caused!" My brother yelled, his anger visible through his pumped up veins.
Thomas was quiet but his pain spoke volumes. I had to remind myself that he was still soaking in that I had lost our child. It was my fault, I could not fathom any other way I could have protected him or her. I felt violated and evermore disgusted.
"It will be alright Merri." was all Thomas said. The somber look he gave me told me he knew more than he would mention. I could not tell if he was angry with me or disappointed in me. In that moment I could only think Austin must have said something to him. He seemed defeated just as I was. He seemed hurt, I was too.
When it was just the two of us, he asked me.
"Was the baby ever mine?"
I died a little.