On the Linoleum(GoodbyeToTheLeavesPt.2)

There aren't too many things that I think about anymore, things that I remember. Fathan and I are here and now, and everything is perfect. We have a house with linoleum floors in the kitchen, simple tiles, we have a bedroom with a comfortable bed full of the things that have passed between us since day one. Another thing that takes away foreign sad memories is the fact that I am swollen and pink with the child we have created, the child that came forth from a miracle that Fathan and I did all by ourselves, and we are happy. I never thought I'd see him this way, rubbing his hand over my stomach, feeling Prudenzia kick, surprise and concern and anicipation and, oh, that fleeting happiness on his face. I never thought he would sing with his head against my stomach, living only for her and for me, and I am glad, she will know music. He falls asleep there often, and I will keep my hand on his soft black hair, his warm breath against my taut skin, against our baby. I never thought I would feel so full with such purpose, not only keeping this baby alive, but keeping my darling Fathan alive, as well, because I know this means so much to him. And when I am in the kitchen, struggling to move, and then there is fluid on the linoleum and he comes running and grabbing me and helping me and packing my things and cursing, why didn't we pack before? and as he drives to the hospital, me moaning in the backseat, my hand on this lump in my stomach, contracting and rolling like a ball, and then we are there and Fathan is crying and coughing, and everything is like this sentence, run-on and incomprehensible, and oh, it hurts me so much. Fathan sings to me, gasping for air, and I feel like I'm underwater, and then we have a baby, but not just a baby, but a baby alive and breathing and crying and here, and as he holds her uncertainly and looks at me to her and back again, he recognizes the connection, that I am her and she is him and we are each other, that he is her father and he created her, we created her, and all is as it should be.




Fathan is on the floor, bloody, and beaten, whimpering. I don't think he is awake, in fact, I'm sure he is not. He lets out a ragged breath, and I turn from the sink to look at him, a heap of flesh and bone, trembling like jello on our kitchen floor. I finish washing the cup and fill it with the fresh, hot coffee I have made, and crouch by the boy who is my man, my only one. I touch him and he's hot, he has a fever. I notice how very thin he is, no shirt on him, his ribs and shoulder blades protrude, extending out like wings. Dried blood is everywhere, stuck to him and on the linoleum, there's mud in his hair and he has a sad swollen black eye. I shake his shoulder and he cries out, covers his eyes with his hands, and I cry, oh, I cry, beacuse he is hurt and he is beautiful, and he is everything to me. I lay him on the couch and I sit in his office, shelves full of filled-up notebooks, his scattered thoughts. I dare not pull one out and look, this would be the ultimate betrayal of his trust, and he would be afraid of what I thought about what he thought. Ah, but does he not see? Those are filled with everything he is, he is everything I am, and he is everything to me.



Fathan is thirty-three, and our daughter is thirteen. Fathan the father is a role I had long awaited, and a role I have come to greatly love. But, you see, our lives are falling apart. Oh, the intense love we feel for Prudenzia, our black-haired gorgeous daughter. He teaches her the way he thinks, she becomes gorgeous and metaphoric and generous, and she can write, and she can think and she makes me feel more pride, she makes Fathan smile. But tonight, tonight, I will run out, and we will run to the other side of town, searching for our precious creation, and I will feel the harshness of human insanity, and not the kind that Fathan displays, but that which forms a fatal mix with cruelty, and there will be the body of my girl, bloody like Fathan on our kitchen floor, but dead, and alone, and my husband and I cry over her, shrieking and sobbing and everything is horrible. Fathan coughs, and then he coughs worse and worse, and then he begins to cough up blood, violently wretching over the bushes, convulsing, shaking on the grass, unable to stop, vomiting and coughing, and there's more and more blood, and I am sure that there is a terrible mistake in this life, that something is terribly wrong.



The police don't even care. They don't even try, though they pretend to. Fathan and I come home, and I clean him up, he's such a bloody mess, and he drags himself to the kitchen and I don't know what exactly it is that he grabs, but soon he is drunk as hell on our piano bench and he's crying and staring at his fingers on the keys, trying to figure out a way to make that beautiful music that he does when he is sober, but he is confused and terrified and terribly depressed and so am I, we are as good as dead. I make a bed for him on the living room floor, and I add another pillow, I will not sleep alone tonight, no matter how drunk he is when he falls asleep crying, because tonight is different, tonight is Hell, and we are deep in the flames, we are sure of that. The bottle slips from his fingers and there's alcohol on the carpet, broken glass, as he slumps and falls to the floor, and I don't know what I will do if he starts coughing and shaking again because it is not right, and he bleeds and I am afraid. Running and picking him off the glass to his feet, please don't start coughing pleasepleaseplease and I help him stand and we lay down on the blankets and crying and yelling, we fall asleep, knowing that all we have done the past thirteen years is of no use now, that our daughter is dead and strangled and we are still here, and we have no purpose anymore.



"Fathan, please stop turning from me, please, just touch me!" He shakes his head. We lay there on our living room floor, like we have since the night she died. I turn him softly to me and he closes his eyes, it seems, in pain.
"Pleas, darling, make love to me, please,"
"I don't want sex as a means to end, no, no more dead children. I love you, but-"
"Just...Please, forget consequences, just-" He sighs and kisses me. I gratefully accept and we move, we move in sorrow, but we move.



"I need to talk to you about my husband."
"Fathan, yes?"
"Uh-huh." I sniffled.
"Well, what are you, uh, what are you worried about?"
"He's, oh dear. Dr. Kenwick, we know each other well, you and I, we're old friends, and I know that you will try and understand as best as you can, yes?"
"Well, of course."
"Fathan is drinking himself blind almost every night, he's hurting himself: he'll sit when he gets nervous and scratch his arms until he bleeds, he often cuts himself when he's doing the dishes and tries to pass it off as an accident. He's afraid to touch me."

Fathan insisted on washing the dishes. He carelessly washed the knives last, and then he had a multitude of nicks and cuts and scratches on his hands, fingers, knuckles. His hands shake over the white kitchen counter, blood forming patterns on the marble.
"Oh, dear, oh, God..." He said, and I saw him and heard him, ran to him and thrust his hand under the faucet and wrapped it in a bandage, he was trembling and crying, and then he coughed, and he coughed more and more, and I knew what would happen, and what's worse, when he began to cough up the blood, his nose began to bleed, and bleed profusely, and his eyes were wide and terrified.
"Why is it bleeding? It's bleeding so much!" He stammered, and only making himself more afraid by reaching his hands to his nose and drawing away blood, looking at me as if I might know what to do.



We are on the lake, I don't know exactly what it is we're trying to do, besides have some free time together, but we just cannot be happy. We fake it though, we try. We stop the boat in a shaded spot to rest.
"I am going to swim, alright, my dear?" He says, and manages to smile, I admire him for that, pulls off his jeans, shoes, shirt, revealing his stark white stomach and his ribcage sticking out, dives in the water, like a small sharp knife plunging into the lake. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, try to focus on anything but Prudenzia, Prudenzia, that beautiful daughter of mine who had coal-black hair and snow-white skin just like-Fathan. I jerk up and frantically look out on the water, and there is nothing, no black head of hair and no skinny white body. I throw my sunglasses off and take off my clothes, feeling revealing and chilly in my bikini, I knew I shouldn't have worn it. I dive in the freezing water and open my eyes, the dank lake water clouding my vision. He's nowhere, nowhere, and I begin to panic. I shoot to the surface and gasp for air, hair across my face.
"Fathan! FATHAN!" I scream his name, my voice hoarse. I take a breath and push myself under, and that is when I see him, black hair fluffing around his face, his yes closed. I swim underhim and strive for the surface, the circle of sunlight so far away, so far, so far...I cannot carry him any further, and I want to stop, give up, but I can't, he's my Fathan, my darling, so I burst through that impentetratable surface water, and he slumps in my arms, but I shake him and I shriek his name in his face, slap him. He groans, a good sign, and I pull him with me onto the boat, crying frantically, doing everything I can to make him breathe...he coughs! He coughs up water and blood, but only a small amount, and he opens his yes and he looks at me, and I know he did it on purpose. He wanted to drown. I glare at him and stand him up, he staggers, and I harshly slap him across his face. He starts and gasps, steps backward and tears begin to roll down his face.
"Why did you do that to me?!" I shriek and I pitch his clothes at him. He looks like a little boy, standing there in his swimming trunks with tears down his face, clutching his clothes to him like a stuffed animal, he looks so scared. I slap him again, and again, and he is crying and covering his face, cowering and pleading and apologizing.
"I'm sorry!" He sobs, and I have nothing I can do but kiss him, and angrily, stupidly make love to him on the rough floor of the boat.