I didn’t want her to find me like that. Or maybe I did.
I had climbed into bed, wearing a white dress that I’d bought from a vintage store uptown. It resembled the christening gown I’d seen in my parents’ closet as a child, laid flat in something that wasn’t much larger than a shoebox. It was slightly yellowed and wrinkled, lined with lace, and smelled of mildew and incense.
Later, I dug through the drawers in our kitchen, searching for photographs of the day I was baptized. After separating the pictures with licked fingers for what felt like hours, I triumphantly placed three glossy prints, side by side, on the counter.
The first was of William wearing the gown, blond hair shining with moisture, in the arms of my smiling parents near the altar. The second was of Annabelle, all brown eyes, mouth exaggeratedly wide and ruddy faced as my mother held her close to her chest in what I can only imagine was an attempt to soothe the screaming darling. The third was of me, looking serene in a way that was oddly chilling. My parents, for some reason, were not in the photo, and I was being held over the baptism bowl by a priest who poured a stream of water onto my golden head.
I searched my face, desperate for some sort of familiarity. My infant pugged nose, my ocean-blue, saucer-shaped eyes, my tightly clenched fingers that formed a tiny ball. But no matter how long I stared, I couldn’t recognize her. I saw nothing of myself.
I didn’t write a note. I didn’t need to blame anyone or leave my family with something to analyze and agonize over. I didn’t want to write.
I lifted the blade with my right hand and pressed it against my left wrist. With one swift movement, I dragged it straight down along the green line, opening the vein.
Blood poured down my arms, drenching my white dress and bedsheets. A wince escaped my mouth as my chest heaved. I began to tremble. A feeling of warmth rushed over my body, beginning in my arms and making its way down to my feet. Then the smell came, like rusted iron.
Lying there, I watched the blood pouring out of me like honey. I’d always loved the colour red. I thought of my mother, what she had told me that day in the grass, and wondered if my eyes were seeing the truth.
Then a moment of terror seized me.
I don’t want to die.
It typically takes forty-five minutes to bleed to death from wrist lacerations.
I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to be myself anymore.
Too much time.
It will be over soon.
Another memory came flooding back.
My father used to take us to church every Sunday, while my mother stayed home in bed. The cathedral was old, the architecture aggressively Romanesque. There was a grotto adjacent to the building with the Virgin Mary, adorned in robes, at the centre.
When mass was finished, we exited the church, shaking the priest’s hand as we always did.
“Bless you, my child,” he said, squatting down to touch my face.
Sprinting across the road, bound for our parked car, one of my sandals came loose and dropped in the middle of the street. I stopped and bent to retrieve it, oblivious to the minivan that was barrelling toward me.
I heard my father’s hysterical cries in the distance: “Grace—move.”
I was frozen in place.
Turning my head, I watched as my father ran for me, but it was too late. The car was inches from me.
The driver slammed on the brakes, and I felt a gust of wind that immediately gave me goosebumps.
My father was by my side. He scooped me up in one arm, yelling at the driver and pounding the hood with his fist. “Watch where you’re going, you fucking idiot.”
He carried me safely back across the road, laid me down, and kneeled in front of me, squeezing my upper arms so tightly they left a white imprint for a moment afterwards.
“Never, ever run into the road like that,” he yelled. I watched his face transform from rage to fear to relief. He started crying and hugged me close, holding me in an embrace as families poured out of the church and traffic resumed unaffectedly.