Once Upon a Time...
... there was a happy family that just had their first child. When Agata was born the man's heart swelled. He stopped being merely a man and became a father. This transformed him. He stopped working as he did and spent as much of his time with his family. He hired an au pair to live with them from the village. They lived peacefully as a family on the dead viscount's wealth. They wanted for nothing.
When Aleksander was born two years later, the man couldn't have been happier. Blessed with not one but two wonderful babies. Both of whom were perfectly healthy and strong and growing into beautiful little children. Agata was already running around the estate and opening every cabinet she encountered. She pointed and demanded things she wanted. She said 'no' or 'go away' when she wanted to be left alone. She was darling and brought light to the estate. Aleksander, like most babes, just nursed and slept and cried and cooed. It was beautiful and wonderful.
Six months after the birth of Aleksander the man's wife was pregnant again. They celebrated as they usually did and prepared. In those days and in that land it was common to hire a midwife from the village to deliver the child at home. So, they did. This time, the woman that they hired was different than the old woman who delivered the first two births. The old woman had passed and the young woman was her apprentice. The young woman was soothing and confidant and sure of herself but something was different about her.
When the time came for the birthing, the man and woman were together, as they had been before. This time though the life from the woman's womb was not. The child was stillborn. It was grey and lifeless. It was a lump of flesh that tore open the healed hole in both the man and the woman. The hole that they had both forgot. The hole of her father, and the hole of his family. To them, it felt like the ground had opened up and swallowed their happiness whole. The midwife insisted on staying around and consoling them and counseling them on their loss. To this the man and woman were grateful. to lose as they had lost is something that no parent should have to go through.
The days passed and their children, who they cared for dearly and cherished ever moreso, could not understand their grief. The woman secluded herself from the rest of her family. for a time her only guest was the midwife who brought her breakfast and supper and tried to talk to her about her loss until she was shooed out of the room. The days became dark then. The happiness form before was eclipsed by the loss that hung in the air around the estate. The midwife did her best but it seemed as if the woman was lost to her grief. And although it was never said or acted upon, to her it felt like the man blamed her body's weakness for the loss.
And so it came to pass that one day the woman was found in her bath with her wrists cut along with her nether regions and neck. The scene was ghastly and gruesome even by today's standards. A month later Aleksander had his first birthday. To all but the children, it was a hollow victory. The midwife had been invited to stay on because of her rapport with the children and her experience with loss of this kind. The man spent most of his time with the midwife talking and trying to understand the emptiness and betrayal that his beloved felt and blamed him and her own body for. He wanted to understand how she could reach the point where taking her life and leaving their beloved children was even and option.
The man finally felt completely alone. His people had left following their personal codes. He had followed his heart and his ambition and stayed with the woman. He had had a family. He had two beautiful children and had almost had a third. and now, even with his children, he felt abandoned. He felt alone for the first time in his life. He tried to shrug off the feeling. He tried to focus on teaching Agata about the world. He tried to focus on spending tie with his first born son Aleksander. And yet, there was that hole. That Hole that came back again and refused to allow itself to be filled.
The man's talks with the midwife helped him understand his beloved's decision. How Kizzy could feel so hopeless how she could feel as if there were no options left to her. He walked with the midwife often through the estate's garden. They stopped often at the foot of the tree where Kizzy was buried. Where her body sat in the earth rotting and neglecting the living. There were times where the man wished he had spent more time with Agata or Aleksander but where he needed to talk to the midwife; where he needed to understand. The man meant well, but in the year after his wife's passing the man spent a significant amount of time with the midwife. He was never unfaithful to his beloved, but he did feel a kind of love for what the midwife did. He felt love for the words of peace that the midwife offered him.
And yes, there were odd things about her that he noticed. He noticed that there were times where her skin was as cold as the winter's frost. There were times where she seemingly forgot to breathe. And, queerer than most it was how she never seemed to be around during the day. But to the man, who was suffering greatly at the loss of his beloved, his Kizzy, he ignored the nagging feelings that he had. He spent time with the midwife because she was the only one who he felt understood his pain. Talking to her seemed to soothe it for a time. He ignored Agata and Aleksander when he was with the midwife. He forgot about time and things like the appropriateness of walking with a woman who was not your wife after nightfall when he was with the midwife.
It became such a problem that months had passed before he even realized that he was willfully neglecting Agata and Aleksander. He did not realize that the au pair was more a parent to them than he was. When he realized this he wept. He wept for the loss of Kizzy and of the close bond that he had had with his children when she was alive. He cried out to the heavens begging, bargaining, and angry for all that had happened.
Two days later, the man succumbed to his own grief. He took the last act that he ever would. He took a rope from supply shed and went to the tree over Kizzy's grave. He was weeping the entire time. His tears plinked on the hard packed earth of his beloved's grave as he began tying the rope. His birth family had left him, losing faith in his capabilities. His adopted family had left him blaming him for judgement and ridicule which he did not offer. Kizzy had left him all alone with two children that he could not care for. They were better off with the nanny. They were better off with a surrogate parent than a pathetic man who would neglect them for their natural born lives. The man finished tying the rope. He said the words of his people asking for a blessing of the newly born on his children and he climbed the tree.
The climb was slow and he sprained his wrist on the way up. But, he had climbed the tree. He was above the place where Kizzy, his beloved, the most beautiful woman that he had ever heard rumor of lay. He was determined to be with her soon. Even if it meant breaking the oaths that he gave to his people long ago. Even f it meant shattering the idea of family that existed still at the estate of which he owned. The man would be re-united with the woman. The man would find a way to fix this hole that continued to eat at him.
There was the splatter of tears on the hard earth as he put the rope around his neck. He thought of Agata and how beautiful she was becoming even at the young age of four now. How not long ago it was that she was two and just remembering to run and point and shout. He thought of Aleksander and how he was already two years old himself. How he had grown even in his mother's absence. His mother's absence. That phrase resounded within the ever growing canyon within the man and his whole body sobbed with him. The man continued his work atop the branch that he had chosen. He wrapped the rope around it. He was ready. Kizzy would be there. Agata and Aleksander had people to watch after them. People more prepared than he was. They would be well taken care of.
10
He thought of Kizzy's smile and how he missed it.
9
He thought of Agata sucking her thumb still and playing with her favorite wooden horse.
8
He thought of Aleksander and the man he would become.
7
The man that would grow up and lead the people of the valley.
6
Images of Kizzy floating in a tub full of reddish brown water.
5
Images of His cousins judging him. How the council of his people rejected him and his complacency.
4
Images of slipping the poison into the old man's wine glass late one evening.
3
Kizzy, Agata, and Aleksander together on their bed.
2
"Dear God, am I doing the right thing?"
1
Falling.
Hanging.
Then Blackness.
A loud snap.
A loud crack.
Then the end.
The End.
The End.
The everlasting End.
-L
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