I push the heavy oak chair into the centre of the empty room. Knot the rope into a noose, and toss it over the exposed roof beam, making sure it is secure. Climb up on to the chair. Hands shaking violently, I fumbled the noose around my neck. Tighten it until it starts to choke me. Then draw one last deep breath. Expelling it slowly I whisper a silently prayer.
The rope snapped my neck the instant my feet left the chair.
***
"You just sit there and stare. Is this death? I felt the rope snap taut. My neck broke; I felt it snap. Even my feet leave the chair. What do you want from me? Why do you sit there and stare?"
The shadow resolved itself into human form. A startlingly beautiful face formed around those staring inhuman eyes. It was Amy. No just her form, how I remembered her before the baby. Perfect completely without flaw. Except for those eyes. Those eyes. They were child’s eyes.
"Amy, you were involved in an accident." She knew this but I felt compelled to explain. Make her say something not just sit there and stare. Fill the silence somehow.
"The shock of the impact caused her water to break. We need your permission to operate." So the voice from the hospital said to me on the phone.
They had to deliver the baby or it would die. You were just more than a month pre-term. I said yes. There was no other decision, I never even considered letting the baby die?
I stood outside the operating theatre. Waiting for someone to come tell me what was happening. I will never forget the thoughts that ran through my head during those long minutes. They would always haunt my nightmares. Finally the doors opened. The doctors walked past me, whispering anxiously to each other. I was about to run after them. Grab them by the shoulders and shake the information out of them.
A nurse stopped me from do just that by calling out my name.
"Mr. Timpkin."
"Is my wife alive? The baby? Both dead?" The words poured out of my mouth. I could not stop them. The nurse just stood there. Watching me; surely waiting for a chance to tell me what I was sure I already knew.
"Mr. Timpkin." She held up a hand as if pleading for me to be quiet. "They are both fine. Your daughter is a little underweight and will have to stay in an incubator, but she will be fine."
I just stood there, completely dumbstruck. So much so that she repeated herself thinking I did not hear the first time. I think I might have even hugged her. From that moment, everything changed. I remember that day so clearly, as if it was the beginning of my life.
Do you remember it? You came home later that week and went straight to bed. Exhausted and a little depressed. The serious faced doctor told me that was normal with a first child. Nothing to be concerned about, just support her, she will come around.
The baby spent a month in that plastic room. I visited her every day. Amy, you said nothing. Completely refused to come with me. It was almost as if you hated what we made together. I asked the doctor about it. He reassured me again; saying when the baby got home it would all change. It did not. Even when the baby was home, sleeping in the cot in the corner of our small room. You still refused to go anywhere near it. Just stared at it and cried.
Two months passed. The baby was so small. We had not named her yet. I wanted you to be well and then we would think up a glorious name. I had to change her. Feed her. Bathe her.
I called the doctor again. Begged him to come and do something. Yet again he refused saying in his usual calm way. "Mr. Timpkin, a little time will heal her. Amy just has to become used to the idea of being a mother, do not worry."
I did not understand. You always wanted to be a mother. I was the reluctant one. In truth, I did not want kids and here I was taking care of the baby by myself. I loved her. I loved them both, as the cliché goes more than light itself.
Then baby got sick. She was barely six months old. Still, not named. "Fever" the doctor said, shaking his head as he covered the lifeless baby's with a blanket. "It was her time, nothing you could have done to save her, Donovan."
At least that was how it would appear in the coroners report; he told me when we were alone. "It would not do to put the strain an investigation would place on Amy at the moment." He said, as he collected his hat before leaving. He must have felt sorry for me.
I just stood there staring. Door wide open, watching him walk out of the garden. How do you save a life? Can you undo death? I knew how to read an income statement or draft a balance sheet, but that did not lower my daughter’s temperature. Nor would it bring her back. I was useless. Totally helpless and with you in your state completely alone.
You came alive that same day. The baby’s death seemed to do something to you. I only need to close my eyes and I see your face contorted in rage. You screamed at me about what I can’t even remember.
Those were the last words you ever said to me. The stinging slap the last time you ever touched me.
A week later, the neighbour I asked to check up on you walked into our bedroom to find you dead. I was away on business in Ohio. Overdosed on sleeping tablets, the coroner said. The police came around and asked me questions about your death. Satisfied, they left me alone in that small apartment that felt more and more like a prison.
"What do you want from me? You just sit there and stare. Say something. Scream at me. Do something. Please just stop staring."
I hid in the basement for five terrible days. The first two days were the worst. I argued with myself back and forth. One moment knowing I had to kill you then next deciding against your death. I know it was wrong, but I even prayed to anything that was listening to guide me. In the end killing you was simple. You just accepted the pills I gave you. Not even a question. Drank them down and closed your eyes. You wanted to die. Didn’t you?
That moment everything I ever loved died. I practised my lie so many times that I believed it was the truth. I had already told my neighbours I was going to Ohio on business. After I killed you I waited two more days praying no one would discover whilst I supposedly returned. Not that it mattered all I wanted to do was die then.
The police believed I was away on business and you committed suicide. They were so easy to deceive with the doctor’s report and the tale of the death of your child. They too left me alone shaking their heads and talking in hushed tones.
We did not even give her a name. What kind of parents were we? When we got married a child was all you wanted. Said it would make you complete. You know I did not even cry when I discovered our daughter dead. Strangled by her blankets. Little body racked with fevered sweat.
"Do you sit there and judge me? How dare you?" I found myself screaming at her something I never did before. "You killed my daughter when you refused to help her. You were her mother. You could have done something, comforted her if nothing else. Amy, were you so revolted by what we made that you could not bear to touch her even if that meant watching her die."
You just sit there and stare. This can’t to be death. Yet I felt the rope snap taut. My neck broke; I felt it snap.
***
I push the heavy chair towards the centre of the room, knowing I done this a thousand times before every step of the way. I cannot stop myself knotting the rope into a noose, and tossing it over the exposed roof beam. Again I make sure it is secure. Climb up on to the chair. Hands shaking violently, I fumbled the noose around my neck. Tighten it until it starts to choke me. Then stepped off. Surely this time I will die. I feel my neck snap as my feet leave the chair. She just sits there in the corner and stares at me.
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