Becoming Abigail

Now XXXIII

Revenge is a raven.

Feathers blackened from hate. And Molly was relentless in her pursuit. Shame turning to the certainty of faith.

The reprisals were swift.

Derek was fired from his job and brought up on charges for the abuse of a minor. Nothing Abigail did helped. Her impassioned denial. Her letter saying it was her fault. Her choice. But they said they were doing this to protect her. That she didn’t know what choice was. But she did. She who had been taken and taken and taken. And now the one time she took for herself, the one time she had choice in the matter, it was taken away. Maybe, she thought, maybe some of us are just here to feed others.

She struck match after match, watching their brief phosphorous flare. No, she thought, maybe I am not here as food, but to live for one phosphorous moment. No, she thought, bringing the flame of the last match to the tip of a cigarette, maybe I just light the fuse of my own destruction.

Forbidden to see or speak to Derek, she could only watch, heart on fire, as his disgrace was finalized publicly. Unable to comfort him, to take the look from his eyes when she saw him in court. The shame and the blame. No, she wanted to scream, no, my love, my heart. This was my choice. Damn this world, she thought, though she didn’t really blame anyone. Things were just the way they were. Besides, how does a hunter tell a vegetarian lion from the rest? This time a peppercorn will not suffice.

And the social worker who bumped into her in the hallway of the court as she watched Derek dragged away to await sentencing. Guilty. Guilty. Thin-lipped and angry, the woman bumped into her, and looking from Abigail to Derek and back, and mistaking the anguished look on Abigail’s face, said to her: Don’t you worry, sister, that monster is going away for a long time. And then the anguished look on the social worker’s face as Abigail’s not inconsiderable right hook connected with her nose.

Looking down at the terrified woman, she licked the blood on her knuckles.

But even that sacrifice hadn’t been enough. It was just like the Igbo said. The sacrifice is always commensurate to the thing wished for. Sometimes a lizard will do, sometimes a goat, or a dog, sometimes a cow or buffalo. Sometimes, a human being.

That day, she knew she would never see Derek again.

But her love was the full measure of her decision.

As she blew smoke into night and the river, she knew, this decision was hard.