Echo Wu
Sylvia Whitman
Creative Writing
Total Words: 2,844
Pink Flesh
I remember the first time I watched my parents fight. It was the day after
Christmas. I think I was about nine years old because I remember distinctively
that this was the year I accidentally gulped down several mugs of alcoholic
eggnog the night before and had to get my virgin stomach pumped. I don’t
remember if it was painful or not, I only recall the eerie wails of an angry
ambulance echoing towards our snowy New Jersey home, as if it was furious to
be working on Christmas day. I remember the pounding sound of boots shuffling
through our front door, a plastic mask forced onto my pink face, the muffled
murmurs of my mother’s prayers. The only thing I remember before losing
consciousness was the sweet cinnamon aroma of holiday gingerbread slowly
morphing into the sickly sterile scent of a hospital floor. I slept through the entire
day after that, only to wake up in the middle of the night to my mother’s shrill
screeches.
“He almost died!”
Her sobs echoed my padded footsteps. Petrified to go downstairs, I
kneeled down to lay my tender belly against the carpet, situating myself just
before the top of the stairwell. My warm flushed face pressed against one of the
cool polished wood columns of the staircase fence. Perhaps it was my
prepubescent efforts to repress the memory, but I don’t remember many words
being exchanged—only screaming. These pained, hysterical shrieks that stripped
my mother of her dignity. And these berserk, maniacal roars that questioned my
father’s sanity.
And then finally, a new sound arose. One never heard in my household
before. One that reverberated up the stairs and snapped at my eardrums, like the
hard sting of a rubber band flick. The sound of flesh contacting flesh. A hand to a
face. A palm to a cheek.
This was not something I intended to learn from my parents. But thinking
about it now, twenty-five years later, as I sit across my beloved and broken wife, I
begin to wonder if it’s something that’s hereditary.
Please calm down, please calm down, I pray silently. I take a deep
breathe in. I look up at her. She sits, in a single armchair, hands wrapped around
her ankles. She wears the face of weariness with traces of anger flickering
across her eyebrows. Her eyes are sunken into the sockets of her skull,
protected by a layer of wet, pillow-like lids that indicate the hours of dreadful
crying. Wisps of her shimmery blonde hair have fallen out of place, shielding her
from me. We both sit in silence our living room that was once so gracefully put
together. It feels as though we are suspended in time. Nothing seemed to matter
at this moment. Not that fact that floor around us is scattered with items that
would belong on the coffee table and on the bookshelves. Not the fact that the
picture frames that once held precious memories are now shattered into
glistening fragments. Nothing but me, her, and the screaming silence that
magnified our flaws.
“Cara?” I croak.
She doesn’t answer.
“What do you want to do?”
She sat in her armchair, frozen like a marble statue.
I wait for her to come to life, my numb fingers rubbing my bruised wrists.
Finally, she lets out a sigh. And for a small moment, I thought I caught a glimpse
of the carefree, sweet, round face who once could steal my heart any moment it
desired. Her forlorn eyes stare into mine. She always had these beautiful cat-like
eyes that could change color in the light. Tonight, they were a frosty blue-gray;
mirroring the dying flame she holds for me in her heart.
“I’m going to bed now.” she whispers.
Cara rises weightlessly from her chair, her legs freshly printed with the
woven burlap pattern from the cushions her thighs pressed into. Her elegant
thick cashmere dress danced like ocean waves as her ghostly figure traveled
upstairs, carefully maneuvering through the broken glass.
“Goodnight, Cara. I love you.”
She murmurs something that I can only pray was “Goodnight Jim.”
It takes me several hours to sweep, clean, and salvage what I could from
the fight. The rays of daybreak were just beginning to peek through when I laid
my head down onto the lumpy sofa to sleep. I am startled awake by a blow to
my solar plexus with a pillow.
“POW! Gotcha Daddy!” a beaming face giggled.
I nearly pass out from the combination of my five-year-old son’s scare and from
the blistering headache of last night. I fake a smile for him.
“Hey, champ! First day of school!”
“Yesh!” Flynn beams. “I got all my markers!” He shakes the backpack
behind him like a duckling wagging its tail.
“Way to go!” I gush, giving him a proud high five. “Come on, let’s get you
some breakfast.”
I watch Flynn shovel spoonfuls of Lucky Charms into his mouth, and then
chomp wildly like a clumsy dog. The tiny freckles on his velvety cheeks danced
around as he continued to eat with almost no refined jaw movement. His sandy
locks, almost identical to his mother’s, worked tirelessly to dodge the milk
droplets that splashed everywhere. Only about half of the marshmallows made it
past his lips. The rest polluted the kitchen table, his toothpaste-laden shirt, and a
tiny blue one even dangled on top of his left sneaker.
“I’m done!” He shouts victoriously.
“Good job, champ!”
Satisfied with his achievement, Flynn lets out a triumphant burp. I kneel
down to wipe the milk off of his doughy face. His eyes fixate on me for a little
while. I stare back in bewilderment as I watch his face turn from cheery and
untroubled to grim and solemn.
He wraps his stout, chubby arms around my neck and hugs me tight.
“I heard you and mommy fighting last night,” he whispers into my ear.
I freeze.
“Did you hit her?”
His moon-like baby eyes well up. My mouth instantly dries up, as if I hate
nothing but piles of cotton for weeks. I stammer, trying to find words, trying to
muster up the courage to speak to my only son.
Not long after, Cara comes downstairs, with her petite purse in one hand,
car keys in the other.
“Flynn, it’s time to go”
Flynn wipes away the fat tears that linger in his eyes and rubs fresh snot
on his sleeves before turning towards his mother. Flynn bolts out of the front
door before she got a chance to notice his wet eyes. Cara turns to face me now.
Her sorrowful gray eyes begin to well up as well. They fill up the shallow crow’s
feet on the sides of her eyes, forming a pathway for the tears to come.
Two weekends later, I find myself spending Saturday night with an old
colleague. There is a muted click of the refrigerator door being shut from behind,
and then two ice-cold cans of beer slam onto the dining table with a metallic thud.
“Thanks.” I grab one.
From across the table, Lana spins a wooden chair with an itchy woven
straw seat around and sits in it backwards with her chin carefully resting on the
top of the backrest. We spend some time listening to the archaic air conditioner
in her apartment shiver.
“You wanna talk about it?” she asks in between sips of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
I shake my head.
“Not really.”
“How long before you do something about it?”
“But why me?”
“I dunno.” She shrugs apologetically. “It’s not like she will.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose.
I remember my first date with Cara. I waited for her anxiously at our local
café wearing an absurd hand-me-down bowtie and a dress shirt too hot for that
yellow summer day. The air carried around me the aroma of tarte au citrons and
chatty gossip. She sat down in front of me wearing a smile and a freshly-cut short
bang trim that celebrated her elegant transition from recent graduate into a young
working woman.
We each exchanged an awkward hello. I even bolted out of my chair to
stand as straight as a board, as if she was some sort of queen in my presence.
I remember greeting her with a grin that wouldn’t leave my face for the rest
of that day. Then, she showed me her quirky trick of making a sugar spoon stick
to her nose. I made a mess of the quiche I ordered. She apologized over a
million times for the tea she spilled all over my tattered converse. I never stopped
staring at her. She never took her piercing blue crystal eyes off of me. I paid for
our lunch. She thanked me by placing her gentle hand over mine. My
heartstrings knotted together at her touch. I watched her petal-like cheeks bloom
into a rosy pink. I spent the next few moments falling for her.
Six years later we were pregnant with Flynn. One gray morning, around
the time when her belly was beginning to plump, I found her crying at the steering
wheel of her car in the middle of the lightless garage.
“I’m so sorry. I have to go.” She sobbed.
“Cara, where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I—God I’m so sorry Jim.”
She sobbed even harder.
“Please stay with me. I love you so much.” I begged with panic striking my
gut.
“I don’t know if I can.”
I watched her ocean eyes desaturate into a cloudy gray. It felt as though I
watched the happiness of her soul reside deeper inside her heart.
“Jim,” she said in a voice hardly above a whisper. “I don’t think I can be
the woman you want me to be.”
“Don’t say that.” I yank her out of the car and embrace her in a tight hug.
“Don’t you dare say that! We can do this. I can be everything that you need.”
Things didn’t get too much better after that. The café became a thing of
the past, as did many other places as well. I often catch myself thinking about the
past—missing it. I do it mostly because if gives me hope for happier times ahead.
Hope that I can be good enough for her. Hope that her electric eyes will return.
Hope that I one day, I can see the apples of her cheeks blush once more—the
kind that won’t darn near break my heart.
A take a deep breath, only to feel even more suffocated.
“Thanks for letting me stay tonight. “ I smile meekly.
Lana gives me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
“I laid out the futon for you in the living room.” Lana stands up, tosses her
empty bottle into the nearby bin and heads for her bedroom.
“Oh, and please,” She begs, darting her eyes at my violet wrists, “if you
need anything… let me know.”
The following week, it’s my turn to put Flynn to bed. “But the wild things
cried—‘Please don’t go—we’ll eat you up—we love you so!’” I read out loud. Soft
purrs and hollow breathing come from the small bed. I peered over the book to
find Flynn sound asleep. In these moments I cherish the gift of being a father. I
caress his feathery hair, and lightly kiss the roses of his cheeks before going
back downstairs.
In the kitchen, Cara is preparing Flynn’s school lunch for tomorrow. I run
my hands across her shoulders and kiss her cheek too.
“He’s sleeping like a baby,” I say.
“Of course.” She sniffs while carving the remains of the roast chicken we
had for dinner. “He was the first one up this morning.”
She schleps the pile of chicken onto a slice of white bread. She slices into
a tomato menacingly.
“Is everything alright?” I ask almost too automatically, like I’ve been
trained to say those words every time.
“Sure,” she snorts. She begins chopping even faster.
“Stop,” I say, putting a hand over her worked up arm. “Tell me what’s
wrong.”
She throws the blade down, walking out of my embrace.
“Where were you last Saturday?” she demands, her back still facing me.
“I was having a beer with Lana.”
“Why? What did she want?”
“Cara, I already told you this.”
“Why?”
“I wanted her advice on something and I—”
“Bull. Why did you see her?”
I pause.
“Tell me”
“I-I-I don’t know. I just wanted to get away.”
“Get away from who?” She’s snarling now.
“I-I- don’t know.”
Wham! Before either of us said another word, her clenched knuckles
rammed themselves into my jaw. She snakes her fingers around my wrists and
wrings them tight. The skin on my hands folds into dozens of tiny wrinkles under
her fierce grip. She pins me against the tiled kitchen wall.
“How could you?” she hisses in my face. The sour punch of cherry liqueur
escapes her tongue.
Fear chills my spine. I keep my eyes shut and manage to choke a few
words out.
“Cara, please—don’t do this again,” I whisper.
I look at her face with despair. My veins are silently bursting under her
monstrous grip. Her eyes dart around like a pair of ferocious bees made of steel.
“Please, baby. I love you so much.”
I pray for her to let go. I pray for her embrace and her apology. I scream
internally for her to come back. And for a moment of hopefulness, I almost
thought she would. But nothing seemed to matter at this moment. Not the fact
that we have come to this ending for many months now. Not the fact that she’s
repeatedly slamming body against the wall. Not the fact that I can hear my skull
cracking upon each impact. Not the fact that our son upstairs might wake up and
only hear her screams, her cries. Nothing but me, her, and the never-waning
thought of wishing I was dead.
“Stop!” I finally screamed.
And when she didn’t, I felt my arm raise and aim for her face for the first
time. A numb, abused hand finally feeling revenge on soft pink flesh. She
releases me instantly. She looked at me with horror, as if she was peering at the
embodiment of evil. Her face scrunched into an ugly cry, and she retreated
upstairs.
A few hours later I find myself in the bathroom, splashing copious amounts
of water onto my face. I rinse my arms that are showing signs of bruising. I catch
myself rubbing at the hand that slapped her, like Lady Macbeth cleaning a sinful
stain.
In the medicine cabinet, I find Clara’s antidepressants. Four fall into my
palm. I crush them into a fine powder using the toothbrush stand and form a
neat, thin line on the sink counter. I pull out a dollar from the back pocket of my
jeans.
I situate myself into the bathtub. My mind begins to wander. My eyes
begin to weep. For the first time in years, a revolting sob escapes my throat. Fat,
warm tears roll down my face. Thin lines of saliva web across the tips of my
teeth. Guilt rushes through me like warm wave. Then anger. Then distress.
“God. Oh God, why?” I hiss inaudibly into the open air.
I pull out my phone and press the “Last Called” button.
“Lana, can I come stay with you?”
Dawn breaks. Streams of sleepy pink sunlight streak down from the
skylight in the bathroom. I peer out the door. No one is awake yet. My heart
pounds against my thoracic cavity like an angry beast trying to escape. My limbs
feel as though every muscle has been injected with soft jelly. I force my feet to
tread lightly down the stairs until they halt at the bottom. Flynn sits at the foot of
the last step.
“Daddy, where are you going?” He asks with sheer dread. Tears cascade
down from his eyes, already forming a wet stain on his pajama shirt. His face is
as flush as the flesh of a cherry tomato—as if he absorbed all the color from my
drained white face.
“Oh God,” I breathe. I scoop him up into my arms and instantly begin to
shake. I started crying the same fat tears as once before. I squeeze him tighter
and tighter. My brain bursts into an infinite number of emotions. I want to take
back everything. The fighting. The pain. The endless nights Flynn has spent in
bed crying in terror with no parents to coo him to sleep. I want to give him the life
I know he deserved. I almost wanted to stay. But I also wanted to start over.
I could take him with me, I think. We could start our own little family.
Suddenly my mind flashes back to my father and his ruthless beatings. I
remember the many times my mother was sent to the hospital from “the
neighbor’s dogs”. It’s better if I go. They will be happy soon enough.
“Be good,” I whisper in his ear.
And without looking behind me, I walk away from everything I loved.