Entropy (31 page)

Mercifully, the lights then change and the bus lurches off.

I remove a pin from my hair, allowing it to drop down across my shoulders and protect me from water falling steadily from the open window. It is quiet sitting alone on the bus; desolate like walking through a desert or a silent film, broken by the jerking mechanics of the bus starting and stopping. No one else had gotten on at any of the last few stops. It feels as if no one cares that I am here – or even exists.

That was all I want, for someone to care that I have ever existed. I would like to be remembered as something more than some images in some watercolors and paintings; images that no one but you and I would really ever understand. Our daughter was supposed to be that testament to my existence. She was my greatest achievement.

I turn over the page in the catalogue.

Page 21
.

I rub my shoulder remembering how much I hate that particular painting and the truth it beheld. The rain coming in is getting heavier, so I stand up and shut the window. I notice the disabled man close his eyes as if he is in pain when, in the distance I see the side road leading to the site where innocence and inoffensiveness had been so cruelly destroyed by brutal, sickening aggression. My hands began to tremble as I picked up the catalogue and sat back down.

For some reason, the intensity of the undertones in the painting made me feel sad as I realized that I would never have any more children after the accident. Maybe that was something that we should never have called it: an accident. Everyone knew that it wasn't. But no one really knew for certain what had exactly happened until a few weeks later when her autopsy results were released. Then, when we were told the specifics of how she died, I was sickened with grief as I thought of how Jenni had suffered at the hands of
that man
.

And for some reason you blamed it all on me.

The passage of time has only served to make those events clearer in my mind and make the memories more painful. You had come home late and I selfishly tried to ignite the spark in our relationship by trying to seduce you with a romantic dinner and had sent Jenni out that afternoon to stay over at her friend's place. Although you seemed distracted by your upcoming art show, we ate our meal and for once our conversation had been civil, even if it had been superficial. We then made our way to the bedroom.

Throughout the night, I tried several times to reignite some of the fire that we once felt for one other. But each time was met with hurried moans and desperation. In the morning, we were both distracted; you because of the opening of your exhibition at a local gallery, I because I longed for the intimacy and eroticism we once shared. However I still rode you with wild abandon, but as you rose to your climax, you moaned in a way that I didn't recognize. Were you thinking of her? After you came, you brushed me aside saying that you didn't want to be late for your exhibition.

As we got ready, I started to feel anxious that Jenni had not yet come home. However you insisted that she was ‘fine'; and that she hadn't bothered to come back because she would be staying at her friend's place again because the gallery was hosting a New Year's Eve reception in your honor. Instead of calling her friend's house to make sure, I selfishly asked if you wanted me to join you in the shower. You said that we were already running late and had to leave.

When we arrived home the next day, Jenni was still out, so I called her friend's home to ask if they could ask her to come home. When I spoke to her friend's mother my stomach dropped, Jenni had not stayed over either last night or the night before. I was hysterical. You coldly told me to calm down and to stop being dramatic. We didn't know where our daughter was and you told me to stop being
fucking
dramatic
. You convinced me not to call the police but that I should call around and see if she had stayed with one of her other friends.

Each time I called around, I became increasingly more panicked as each parent told me with a certain air of judgment that
they
didn't know where
my
daughter was. After another two hours had passed, you finally consented to allow me to call the police. However, before I could place the call, our phone rang. Hoping it was Jenni calling us to say that she was safe, it was the police.

From that moment onwards, the cracked foundations of my existence finally crumbled and my entire life fell away. I was the last person to have seen her alive, after sending her away to stay at her friend's. I had sacrificed my role as mother and protector of our daughter so that I could desperately try to win you back from the strengthening grip of another woman by the only way I knew how – using my body and sex. And now I had lost everything.

***

When the police came around to take our statements, I could see your counterfeit regret as you loosely held my hand. I had desperately wanted you to clutch it tighter, and for you to provide me with some inherent meaning to your actions. Instead, all you responded with were words that just bled hollow, and ran down the contours of your arm, across your fingers, and onto the street. You truly loved and trusted the canvas more than us. Everything would eventually be washed away, and it angered me that you found encouragement and even artistic inspiration during this time, as you sort to exploit my pain at our daughter's death for your
art
.

There was nothing more that we could say to each other after the police discovered her body in that pool. What was I supposed to do now? No one told you what to do, not the police or their psychologists, after your child was brutally raped and murdered. In place of anger, I embraced guilt and culpability, which you exploited in the details and shades you painted, especially the perspective, and the distance between the far edge of the street and the camera's eye. The leaves on those trees were insulting and irresponsible.

Did you even think to include her memory in your work?

At least there was no mention of her on any of the pages of the catalogue. And for that, I was relieved. As much as I missed her, I could never have looked at her upon a canvas, and seen her innocence and grace corrupted by your need to seek out the pain and vulnerability in your subjects.

I pass the street but am unable to look as the bus continues down the road. Instead, I close my eyes, trying to protect myself from the memory of falling to my knees when I was told that she was no longer with us; the pain of trying to breathe and gain some strength inside me, only to be smothered by the feeling of insensibility that found its way in through every pore of my body.

When the police asked us to come and identify our daughter at the morgue, you looked at me as if I was the villain. Although you came with me begrudgingly, you had fallen short of the man that I needed. You seemed distracted. I wasn't sure if it was because it caused a mild distraction from your selfish craft … or if it was because you didn't care about her – or me. You were negligent in your duty as husband and father.

We drove in silence to the morgue. I longed for the comfort and protection of your embrace, but you steadfastly gripped the wheel of the car. I had never felt so alone. As we approached the morgue, I shuddered. Even though you took my hand as we walked towards the building, you were silent, aloof; your grasp feeling cold and unfamiliar. As we were led into the dark room and your gaze seemed far-away and lost. I desperately hoped that the body was not our daughter. I looked to you for reassurance and support, hopeful that it had all been a huge misunderstanding but your eyes failed to comfort me. I hoped that she was safe … someplace.

The sheet that covered the lifeless body that lay on the cold concrete slab was pulled back. I gasped and my fingertips cut deeply into your hand. I heard you moan but I wasn't sure if it was from the pain of the cuts from my nails or whether it was from seeing our beautiful daughter lying naked, lifeless, gone. Her innocence washed away by the brutality of the inhumane. I was no longer a mother. I was lost. I was barren and afraid. I looked to you as my husband, lover, friend – but you had moved away, dropping my hand – moving further away from our daughter and from me. I often wonder whether you made up your mind to leave me right then.

A police officer lightly touched my back and asked if we were okay. I fell to my knees in desperation, but you still remained stoically silent as you kept looking straight past me. It reminded me of the emotionless form of my father looking out at the horizon from his chair on the porch.

***

Looking out from the bus, I saw the wind carry a small shawl from the front porch of a house onto the grass. In a matter of moments, it changed colors from the transparent blue of a robin's egg to the shade of a pale winter frost. With time and gently cleaning, the stains would fade over time. I imagined that it belonged to a young girl, given to her by her grandmother. She was supposed to save it for her wedding day, so that she could place it gently across her shoulders to keep off the early spring evening chill.

But somehow the girl had misplaced it, allowing it to be swept away from the front porch. It made me feel sad. I turned in my seat and watched as the blanket tried to move, weighed down by the soil, wind and the rain. My fingertips pressed deeply against the glass and let out a sob. It was as if everything that was once beautiful had been destroyed by the actions of that man. It wasn't just the destruction of my life, but the entire town. However it hadn't been caused by a short, explosive blast, but rather, was a slow, grinding process of slow decay, punctuated by the almost routine discovery of another poor child. The cumulative weight of each tragedy was crushing what life remained. If this went on any longer, our town would soon cease to breathe altogether.

The sound of wet splats caused me to look down at my lap and at my tears falling upon the open catalogue. I turned through the pages in search of some distraction.

Page 26
.

I recognize the lighthouse in this painting. It was the one erected less than a mile from our house by the bay.

I once climbed the old steel ladder that led to the summit of that lighthouse. I sat there for hours without really thinking about anything but just watched the way the shape of the water changed when the winds moved across the bay. Looking at the painting in the catalogue, I think you should have brought the definition towards you more when you painted it. The way you cast the light across the rungs made them look immaterial, fragile like tissue paper, so that if I were to climb its heights, I would have fallen helplessly into the arms of the water and the jagged rocks below.

I had remained at the top of the lighthouse well into the evening. I wrapped myself in that old quilt that your mother gave us on our wedding day. Do you remember? She had said that it belonged to your grandmother. I sat there unsure of what to do. Even though it was you who had betrayed us, I felt like my skin was damaging the delicacy and simplicity of the hand-woven fibers of the old heirloom.

Your mother tried several times to call me after she found out what had happened, but I just let the telephone ring through to the answering machine. The last time she called she left a lengthy message. However, the phone reception must have been poor because all that remained were fragments of a message. However, I could imagine the rest of what she had said based upon the parts of the message that I was able make out.

I thought she was careful, but deliberate with the words that she chose, being careful not to lay specific blame, but also never absolving me from my responsibilities as a mother and wife. When she spoke about our daughter, her voice changed to a more delicate tone. I hoped that she spoke the way she did, because she didn't want to offend or hurt me. Perhaps she was right when she expressed her concerns over the differences in our backgrounds and upbringings.

Four days later she expanded her thoughts in a letter.

I am so sorry for what has happened between you and my son. You know that I never made any secret about you being from different worlds and that I thought he never thought of you as anything but a beautiful creature for him to paint. But I can only imagine how you feel now.

When we lost Jennifer, it broke our hearts. She shared your beauty and my son's spirit and intelligence. Her passing, if I can call it that, was so sudden and unnecessary.

I am sorry that I didn't made time for you in the last few months. As you would expect, I have been focused on my son and how he has been coping. Besides, I thought that you would have been strong enough to cope without needing us. I can only imagine how you feel as a mother. I haven't spoken to my son in a couple of days, but it's hard for a parent to not stand by their child; right or wrong. It doesn't matter if I express who I think is at fault, it won't help change the outcome of anything. It is such a difficult thing to do; to be objective when it comes to somebody you love, especially your own flesh and blood. I wish I could tell you that everything will be okay. I did try to visit you recently, but you were out. There are more things to be said about what has happened, but that is a conversation best saved for after you have had time to grieve.

You can reach out to me if you want to, but I will understand why you may not. All I can say again is that I am sorry for your loss.

Slumping back in the bus seat, I closed my eyes as I thought about that letter and all that had happened and chills passed over my body, numbing my senses. The sale of your paintings should have unburdened me. In their place, each one's disappearance suffocated the independence I desperately thought I could sustain.

When we were together you had tried so hard to maintain a dictatorial hold over the shape of things around me. You measured yourself as a color alchemist; an intelligent handler of chemicals and dyes. Now, the very oils and resins in those paintings felt as if they enshrouded my existence, choking my warmth, and blanching the colors of my now fragile existence. It had become clear to me that I was merely your map; a place where you could live; a place you could conquer.