Josiah Marquez Part 5

I wanted to take revenge on her, but not like that. My plans for revenge involved making her feel jealous, regret what she lost, and be forced to have me in her life. Not triggering her over her dead brother or her parents, or any other crap that would be worthy of a psychopath. Speaking of psychopaths... Could it be that bastard Cristian had something to do with that prank? After all this time? Why? Did he blame her for Lucah’s accident? For the death of the child? She clearly couldn’t have done anything... She was giving birth when he crashed the car. Marta still loves the woman she calls her daughter-in-law, as if she were her own mother.
Or did he do it because my ex never let him see his granddaughter? Because she said he could never get close to the child? Or was it because of all the crap Ana threw in his face in front of the police when she almost got arrested?
Yes, it had to be Cristian. No one else had problems with my ex, who was now trembling and crying on the couch. I put water to boil and prepared a sachet with chamomile and passion fruit leaves. I didn’t have any sedatives at home, and I wouldn’t want to see her sedated anyway.
“Drink this!” I ordered, sitting down on the coffee table.
Ana raised herself and wrapped her deformed hand around the mug. She was shaking, and the proof of how bad she was was that she didn’t care about me seeing the hand she always hid. I noticed how she was making an abnormal effort to hold the object, so I helped her hold it with her other hand.
She sipped the liquid, her face swollen as she sobbed while doing so. She looked so beautiful in that little black romper covered in sunflowers...
Maybe I was some kind of fool with a heart. With more feelings than I’d like, with more love for Ana than I should or she deserved, but seeing her suffer for those losses hurt me deeply. It was a feeling of helplessness. I knew I shouldn’t have put myself in the position of taking care of her, but there I was again, feeling like I had to hold things together for her so she wouldn’t fall apart, just like that first Christmas we spent together.
It was no longer a matter of choosing whether to be an anchor for Ana. Now it was a matter of not letting the mother of my child lose herself completely. After all, I had seen a very similar moment to this during Christmas of 2016.
“If you want, I can call Luana or Marta...”
“You think so too, don’t you?” she asked between sobs that almost made her unable to breathe. “You think it’s my fault.”
“Of course I don’t think that!”
“I never told you the details... You don’t know what you think or not!” she mocked, turning her gaze to me, as if she was starting to see me again, to focus on life beyond the thoughts in her mind.
“Then tell me...” I whispered, resting my elbows on my thighs and my chin on my hands.
I wasn’t sure if asking her to talk about the trauma was the best thing, but it might help. She never spoke about it, at least not to me. In all our years as a couple, Ana had never detailed what happened, how the accident happened, or what she felt:
“My parents had gone to work, and I used to study in the afternoon, so it was my task to take care of Ben during the morning...” She pressed her upper lips between her teeth, trying to hold back the sobs. She took a sip of the tea, then took a deep breath. “And he always played in the living room, on the huge colorful rug. It was my parents’ dream house, a glass house, nothing too fancy, but it had the barbecue my dad loved and the pool my mom wished for years. I remember looking at the rug, and Ben was sitting there, lining up toys and lost in his imagination. He had such perfect curly hair around his little head, dark eyes, and cheeks that turned rosy for no reason... My poor Ben...” she sobbed. “I never left the living room door open, but that day, the air conditioner in the living room was broken, so I opened the damn glass door, not paying much attention to what I was doing because I was anxious to finish the damn copy of Pride and Prejudice. And...” Ana then looked at me, and there was so much pain in her eyes that I almost stopped hating her in that moment. My chest was tight, and it felt like there was a damn knot tied inside my throat, making me swallow hard and hold my breath. “When I realized, Ben wasn’t sitting on the rug anymore. I looked at the round clock on the living room rack and it was already past the time for my mom to get home from work. She owned a clothing store and usually arrived at lunchtime when I was getting ready for school. I remember feeling something strange and dropped the book, I heard it hit the floor and started calling Ben’s name while looking in the kitchen, the bedrooms, and when I searched the whole house, I went back to the living room... It was like a chasm opened beneath me, Josiah. I stared at the damn living room door, and there was a small body floating, wrapped in a denim romper, with the little curls drifting. I jumped into the pool, screaming, crying, and swam to him. I grabbed that lifeless little body in my arms. I remember dragging him to the edge, but before I could try to revive him, I heard my mom’s screams.”
Ana took a deep breath, her expression distant, pressing her lips together and shaking her head, crying. I don’t even know when my eyes started tearing up too, but I didn’t care, just gently removed the mug from her fingers. I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her down to sit on the carpet. Ana lay on her side, resting her face on one of my arms, while I kissed her head.

"You don’t have to talk anymore if you don’t want to.
" I don’t even know how much time has passed, no idea at all. But I remember seeing my mom trying to revive my brother, shouting for me to get help, but I couldn’t move. I remember seeing my dad taking Ben in his arms and running away. And I lay there on the floor around the pool, feeling like I had killed my brother." Ana turned to face me, seeking a hug. Her chest was heaving, her breathing was heavy, and I wrapped her in my arms, letting her sit on my lap. "My Aunt Marina showed up much later, lifted me, gave me a bath, and took me to the investigator. Instead of just hearing that Ben had died, he filled me with questions, so many, with such a heavy tone, that my subconscious kept telling me that everyone thought like him, that Ana drowned children, that Ana didn’t take care of her brother, that Ana was incapable of saving the baby she had begged for years to have.
"Enough! — I whispered, feeling my mind weighed down by all that confession. I always wanted her to tell me what happened, and now I felt it was better not to know. I didn’t want to imagine the scene of Ben dead because it was impossible not to think about what would happen to me if I lost my daughter. I didn’t choose her, I didn’t choose to have Júlia, but she existed, and that was enough for me to love her, to feel that I’d give all my blood for her if needed, that I’d die of hunger just to feed her... — You’re already in enough pain, Ana. I understand what happened, and I don’t think you’re to blame. It was an accident.
" After the interrogation, my aunt took me home, but my dad came at me as soon as I took my first step. He yelled, with his long, thin face contorted, his green eyes watery, asking why I hadn’t taken care of Ben. He asked why I let him die... I begged for forgiveness, but he left. I tried to go to my mom, but she was sitting on the beige couch, and she just gave me an apathetic look and said that I didn’t live there anymore. And that was the last time I saw them." Ana pulled away from my hug, wiping her face. She cupped my face in her hands and looked into my eyes. "How many losses does it take to make a person crumble?
" I... I don’t know, Ana.
" For my parents, losing Ben was enough for them not to think about anyone else. To forget about Docinho, whom they loved, that the truck driver didn’t deserve and didn’t want to die, that parents would grieve for that man, that children would be orphaned, that their own daughter would be orphaned. It’s awful dealing with the feeling that they saw nothing beyond their own pain, and I judged them. But now, I’ve lost so much that if I didn’t have Júlia, maybe my fate would be the same...
" Don’t say that!
" Death stole four people I loved: my parents, Lucah, Ben..." she said, with such sadness that I couldn’t even feel anger about her mentioning him, the brother who hadn’t ceased to be a traitor by dying. "And I was abandoned three times: by my parents, by my aunt, and by you! And I’ve managed to overcome the others; I just can’t get over you, your desire to hurt me, to make me look at everything we’ve lost, at everything we could have been. Because that damned bucket just makes me remember the guilt, and when it comes up, it reminds me of all the wrong choices I’ve made in life.
" Ana..." I whispered, letting her slip onto my lap, knowing what she wanted, how she was following the routine of what she sought to escape from suffering. "Don’t try to make me feel guilty; where our relationship went is also your fault.
" Yes! We’re the villains of our own lives, responsible for our ruin. Now... Make me feel something that hurts more than my damn heart, that quiets these damned thoughts in my head!
And I knew it was wrong, that the path we would take in the next moments would bring regret, but it was something I wanted, needed, and wouldn’t deny just because I couldn’t."