Becoming Abigail

Then XIX

This was how she found her father. Hanging. The week she was to leave with Peter. Hanging. From the hook where the ceiling fan had been. And now a cruel breeze blew in and he swayed in the raveling and unraveling of the hemp rope. Round. And round. Like a lazy Christmas ornament. And down one leg, and pooling on the floor, his reluctance. Yellow. And in the heat, putrid, rank with him. His life. His loss. And she didn’t cry. Didn’t seem shocked. Knew. Always knew. It was more a matter of when. And how.

She sat on the floor beneath him. Felt his toe brush her cheek with every turn. Turn by turn. His big toe. Spiced with his urine. And the uncut toenail, rough on her face. Sharp enough to cut. Cut a small line. Line linking her to him. Him held only by that line falling. Falling from the ceiling in hemp. Hemp becoming flesh. Flesh the fluid of him, leaking. Leaking down his leg. Leg ending in the toe. Toe brushing her cheek with a cut. Cut the line. Cut the line. Line. The rope. Rope-saw-rough voices. Voices calling. Falling heavy in the dust around her. Her sitting on the floor. Floor where his crumpled body was laid on the hard of concrete. Concrete falling away into the soft of loam and he falling. Falling into Abigail. Abigail, her, sitting on the floor. Losing him. Him losing her. Her. She. She the reason for him doing this. This love. Love calling to love.

She sitting on the floor. Floor patterned by the footprints of those voices who cut him down. Down from the line. She dipped her finger in the pool of him and brought it to her lips. The salt of him. The sum of him. There is no way to leave anything behind. She soaked her hands in him. Brought them wet and shiny in the sunlight to her face. Smeared. But water is just that. Nothing left behind but the prickle of his evaporation and the faint fragrance of loss. Loss: She knew this. Knew this. Knew this.

This wasn’t grief. Grief wasn’t the measure. Joy, joy, joy. Shameless. Shameful. Abandoned. Released. She rolled in it. It coated her in liquid and dust. There was no line. Just this wet muddy smudge of him, and the spent form of her.

And she laughed.