Page 23 of Isle of Pain

13

MARIE

ESCAPE IS MY COPING MECHANISM

It’s 1 am when cries wake me from my stupor, yet again. My head pounds but I’ve grown accustomed to it in the past six weeks. If it’s not from excess, it’s from the lack of what I need. And it’s rarely from excess anymore. I’m too scared to hurt Ember, to not hear as she cries for help.

I haven’t touched liquid oblivion in three days and my skin itches. But Ember has had colic and I haven’t been able to refill my room with supplies, nor count on my mother to watch her as I pretend to need sleep but drink myself into a semi-coma.

The room is always filled with my dead sister’s presence, with no way out, her purple shit and colourful clothing everywhere. I’m short of breath, suffocating as I pick up my baby and fasten the soft blue sling around my back and hers. I carry Ember down the stairs to the kitchen. I’m sure my mother is awake by now and will fill the room with her questions and choking motherly love. But it will be all for her. Not for me. Maybe it’s the punishment I deserve for keeping the secret that killed my sister.

No one has commented on the fact that I’ve lost twenty pounds in the past six weeks or that a sickly blueish colour stainsmy under-eyes permanently. I’m not sure I want them to. I don’t know what I want except a goddam drink.

I rock Ember into my arms, bouncing on my feet as I prepare her late night bottle.

Three, two, one.

“I can take her if you need to sleep,picculina,” my mum says behind me, approaching on soft feet. Her slippers slide lazily against the wooden floor. When she’s next to me, she places a hand behind my daughter’s head and kisses her forehead. She stops crying for a brief moment before redoubling her effort to wake my father, too.

“I got it,” I answer without looking at the green eyes that still hold life and love while mine have dimmed with each passing day since my sister’s funeral.

I’ve avoided everyone since that day and it hasn’t been easy considering I live at home and everyone’s always up in my business. Or I should say, my daughter’s business.

I don’t know when I started considering Ember as my daughter rather than my niece. Maybe the very first moment she was placed in my arms while tears were still fresh on my cheeks. Maybe the first time she cooed at me, or when she grabbed my finger as if asking that I never let go.

“Are you sure she’s okay?” my mother asks and my shoulders bunch up, jaw clenching with the force of not telling her to fuck off. “She’s been crying a lot.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I told you she has colics. It doesn’t magically go away in one day.” My tone carries an edge of anger and if my father were here, he would have already smacked me for speaking to my mother like that. I barely feel the shame as the microwave beeps and I take the bottle, feeding it to Ember who gulps at it in greedy pulls.

“I know, but maybe we should get a second opinion,” my mother counters with even more softness.

I want to scream.

All my family has done since that day is doubt my ability to mother Ember as I’m dealing with newly found motherhood and grieving for my soulmate.

The first time they suggested I wasn’t the best suited option for my own daughter was three days after the funeral when the attorney read the documents saying she was indeed mine by law. I can’t erase Lana’s deep frown from my mind, nor the silence that followed the documents’ reading.

I've barely ever been left alone with her since then.

“I know what’s best for Ember,” I say coldly before turning my back on my mother.

Like you knew what was best for Lisa.My mother doesn’t say it but the absence of words doesn’t make it less true.

I sit on the sofa in the living room. It swallows me into a warm embrace as I settle my back against the soft beige fabric and focus my attention on the bundle in my arms.

Ember’s wide green eyes are set on me, as they always are. It’s like she can see through my soul. But compared to all the other members of my family, she doesn’t find me lacking.

Right on cue, my mother sits next to me and places a hand on my knee. “About that. Have you thought about your options, like we talked about last week?”

What she really mean to ask is if I have thought about giving my daughter up to her or Lana, who doesn’t even want kids, so that I can study and “live my life”, whatever the fuck that means. There’s nothing else for me but Ember. She’s my life now. But the last time I said that to Colomba Moretti, she cried and pleaded that a twenty-year-old shouldn’t be stuck with a baby that’s not even theirs. Because no one thinks she’s mine, no matter what the law says. And that makes me want to drown in a bottle of whisky until I die.

The only reason I don’t do exactly that pushes the bottle away with her tiny, chubby hands.

I hold her close and inhale her soft baby scent, helping her digest and swaying her in my arms as I wait for her to fall back asleep.

“There’s nothing to talk about, mamma. I’m a mother now and that's all that matters.”

“It doesn’t have to be,picculina. You could go to university. Find what you want to do in life, meet someone you love.”

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