Becoming Abigail

Then XXII

And this is how she was made.

Filth. Hunger. And drinking from the plate of rancid water. Bent forward like a dog. Arms behind her back. Kneeling. Into the mud. And the food. Tossed out leftovers. And the cold. And the numbing of limbs that was an even deeper cold.

Without hands, she rooted around her skin with her nose. Feeling for the brandings, for the limits of herself. And then the urge came, and she held it away, held it away. Until she let go, she couldn’t feel the warmth wash down the frozen limits of her skin.

Without hands, she bit at the itches from blood vessels dying in the cold. From the intimacy of dirt. Bending. Rooting. Biting. Her shame was complete.

And Peter came every day. Twice a day. At dawn. At dusk. To feed and water her. With rotting food. Rancid water. Sometimes his piss. By the tenth day she no longer cared. Couldn’t tell the difference.

And when Peter was out. At work. The angel came. Sometimes it wore the face of Mary’s dead daughter. Sometimes Mary’s. Told her stories. How Peter had beaten the girl. Just months old. Because she wasn’t a boy. Beaten Mary. Until that night. When he threw her down the stairs. She fell on the baby she was holding. How the child died. Accidental, the coroner ruled.

And she wept as Mary warmed her limbs in the electric blanket. How Abigail would follow the red line in the snow. The electric cord becoming the umbilical for a new birth. A divine birth. And Mary’s tears would melt the snow. And Abigail would nod and whisper: I know. I know. I know.

And the sound of the words was a hoarse rasp. Formless.

And Mary would echo: I know. I know. I know.

And the sound was a woman crying in the snow.

Wrapping her guilt in an electric blanket. Wrapped around a girl slowly becoming a dog.