Fascination With Water
SARAH
He leaned further back, resting his head against the chair like he was reliving it all.
“Her name was Marcella. She was really beautiful,” he added with a smirk. “I even got her to give me a blow job.”
I looked at him with disgust. My stomach twisted.
That only made him laugh harder.
“So anyway, Marcella was in the nursery with you. You two were singing. Laughing. She was brushing your hair, I think. And I went in there and told her Dad was calling her downstairs.”
His voice grew quieter,
“She listened. She just left you there with me.”
He looked at me then, “Of course, even Dad didn’t know how dangerous I really was then.”
"Do you know why Dad never remarried?" he asked, his voice a low murmur that barely cut through the quiet hum of the afternoon.
"Because he was very in love with our mother," I replied, the familiar explanation rolling off my tongue. "He didn't want to be with anybody else. He never found a love like hers, and he didn't want to taint her memory."
"Maybe," he said with a shrug, a hint of scepticism in his tone. "But we both know Dad was still a young man when Mom died, and he's a fully grown man. He has needs. It's not like he hasn't been… well, fucking all this while. So it makes you wonder. Why didn't he ever marry?"
I considered this, a new angle to an old narrative. "Maybe because he didn't want to have other children, and he was just fine with the three of us."
"Maybe. But I think the answer is you," he said, his eyes suddenly fixed on mine.
"Me? What do you mean?" I asked, completely taken aback.
"I mean that you're the reason he didn't remarry."
"That makes absolutely no sense," I scoffed, dismissing the idea outright.
"Anyway," he said, shrugging it off, seemingly unconcerned with my incredulity. "Do you know that he was fucking Marcella?"
My mind reeled. "I was three for God's sake!" I pointed out, the absurdity of the statement.
"Right. Right. Well, one day I found Marcella on her knees sucking Dad off. And when she went back into her room, I went in and told her to give me a blowjob. My first blowjob. It was amazing. And that is why when I told Marcella that Dad was downstairs and that he needed to see her, she didn't think about it twice. She immediately ran downstairs.... And she left you. With me. Not even giving it a second thought."
He paused, letting his words sink in.
"That was the last time Dad wanted to fuck a woman around you. A woman he was intimate with. Because that was the night of the accident."
"The accident? What accident?" I asked, a cold dread beginning to seep into my bones.
"By then, I had already filled the bathtub with water," he continued, his voice softer now, almost a whisper, as if recounting a dream.
"I came into the room and told you to come with me. You didn't think twice about it. You were always fascinated by me, and you liked me. As we walked into my room and then into the bathroom, I told you I was going to give you a bath, and you were excited. I picked you up and put you into the bathtub."
He paused, a distant look in his eyes, as if reliving that moment.
"As I put you into the water, you tried to touch, you tried to keep your hold on me," he continued, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, a chilling contrast to the horror of his words.
"But I had filled the bath to the brim, and I pulled your hands away from me. I stood away from the bathtub and watched you as you fought the water, trying to find somewhere to touch, trying to find yourself so that you couldn't drown, so that you couldn't fall in."
The air felt heavy, becoming terrifying. My breath caught in my throat.
"I have to admit, you were a very good fighter," he said, a strange, almost clinical fascination in his voice, as if he were recounting a scientific observation.
"I saw a Sullivan inside you that night, the way you fought the water, the way you wouldn't just go away as quickly or as easily as I thought you would. You weren't as weak as I had previously thought, not just a quickly drowning baby. No, I saw a Sullivan inside you, and I was fascinated. I was frozen in place just watching you fight, and that is the best thing I have ever seen."
He sighed, "I have tried to remake that night," he said, a note of twisted frustration entering his voice now.
"Put a lot of people into pools, in the middle of the ocean, tried to get them to drown, but none of them has ever really captured me, captured that moment the way you did....I use that night," he continued, his voice now a low, intense growl, "when I feel down, or when I don't get what I want. I always remember you and the way you fought, and I just get powerful. And I fight harder. I owe you for that one."
"Anyway," he said, a sigh escaping his lips, as if the memory was almost too much for him, yet his eyes still held that disturbing gleam.
"That's when Ryan showed up. He was a little out of breath, as if he'd been running. And when he saw you in that water... By then, you had already gone under, but your hands were still fighting to grab onto something. It was as if you were still fighting, you hadn't given up. He looked at you, surprised, and then he turned to me and asked, 'What is she doing?' And I told him, 'She's drowning.'"
He smiled, a faint shift in his demeanour, as if the narrative was beyond his control, "Just then, we started hearing screaming from behind us. We turned around to find Marcella. She was standing there, screaming her head off. She was probably screaming the house down. She immediately ran towards you and took you out of the bathtub."
A flicker of disappointment? Annoyance? Crossed his face as he recalled the scene.
"And of course, a few minutes later, as she was trying to get you to release all that water you had been swallowed, Dad was there. Then the soldiers.... And everybody was running around, calling an ambulance, calling the doctors, taking you out of the bathroom."
He turned to look at me then and announced,
"So you see, Sarah, that’s where you got your fascination with water. That’s where you got your fascination with drowning. It wasn’t just a mistake. You wanted to drown yourself."
He said it so simply. So casually. Like it was just a fact....
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