The cold ventilator is a metronome, dragging out the beats of her continuation in cruel four-four time.
Life is defined as the period between birth and death, a transitory time, a journey. It is a generous allegory, a journey. Margaret is inclined to think of life as more like a war, a bloody battle that leaves nothing but barren land and still bodies. But Margaret, as she well knows, is biased.
The root of her cynicism was not her childhood, unlike what most Freudian psychoanalysts would have us assume. She was a happy child, and she had that precocious flippancy that led adults to believe she would progress into a happy woman. Academia didn’t come easily to her, but she grew up in the time of housewives in polka-dot aprons tending to husbands with leather briefcases and packs of Strand, so it didn’t really seem to matter. Furthermore, she was a pretty enough girl, so she would have little difficulty finding a suitable man. Yes, the battle of Margaret’s life was a sure victory.
And yet here she is, in a sterile hospital room, with the privacy curtains open, displaying her suffering to an audience of zero. For hours now, there has been a ferrous taste in her dry mouth, but she cannot muster the energy to inform the nurse. If she is really being honest with herself, though, it is not a lack of energy preventing her from pressing the button. She needs to believe she can preserve a shred of her dignity by not being reliant on others on her final evening; she knows this is petty. Margaret supposes she inherited this stubborn independence from her father, an unwaveringly proud man with a devotion to providing his family with the best life he could. Of course, this was not always possible, given the circumstances.
Precisely coiffed hair, a stench of cheap cologne, a hacking cough- these are some of the few clear images that surface when Margaret pictures her father. Secondary to these, she remembers his tall, slim silhouette slightly bent over a cane, lecturing her siblings on everything from skateboarding to patriotism. He was only nineteen when war broke out, and he took it as a personal insult to his manhood. He threw himself into the war effort, with the staunch belief that, when the Germans saw the tenacity of the English forces, they were bound to surrender. He never lost that trust in his boys on the front line, right up until the end of the war. Good old English bravery, that was what those lions had, standing in those damp trenches with nothing but courage and bullets. The only reason he wasn’t standing with them was his damn foot.
On the third of September 1939, he registered with the armed forces, and on the third of September 1939, he was sent home.
Her mother was kinder, for she was an empathetic soul, whose reserved appearance masked a heart of butter. With every slight her husband gave, she melted a little, as if it was her under his scorching gaze. She never could stand to see others hurt- maybe that was why she refused to turn on the radio, to bear witness to the brutalities of the war. Her mother feared what her father aspired to. Still, she loved him. Even their tumultuous marriage didn't hide that.
Margaret would give whatever time she has left for a spoonful of that love. Dying is a lonely process. Her mother died alone, in her bed, less than three years after her father. So Margaret supposes that even that unconditional love she yearns for cannot help in the end, when the holding hand becomes limp, when the shared smile falls. The nurse enters the room with a shallow grin.
“Hello dear, need more morphine?”
Margaret nods yes, and thinks of her sister.
Love can also be a lonely process, as Margaret’s young sister Samantha can attest.
Sam was three when she met her husband, at a playground five minutes from her house. She didn’t think much of him at first; he only reached a third of the height she did on the swing set. As it happens, Margaret fancies this dynamic was what eventually drove them apart. Samantha’s ambition was quashed by her husband’s quiet underachievement, and the resulting resentment dug a trench between them. However, this emotional no-man’s land was never breached, so they paid little heed to it. It must’ve been a relief for Samantha when he left, though she would never admit it. She had her father’s pride. Margaret fancies that Sam was like her father in many ways: her low voice, her thin lips, and the way she didn’t hide her emotions, but rather decided not to feel them at all.
Looking down at her hands, Margaret is reminded of her and her father’s sole similarity. They are long and elegant, with delicate, skeletal fingers. Reflecting the fluorescent lights, a thin gold band is loose on her ring finger, the only adornment a shallow engraving that reads, “For M”. She has no sunspots. Instead, her ivory skin holds creases and folds that meander along her narrow palms, seldom interrupted by freckles or moles. These appear to be the hands of a starved pianist- her knuckles jut unnaturally, creating stark shadows and severe angles- but they are her father’s hands. The resemblance has only grown with age, and she is disgusted by it.
The self-pity abates when the morphine kicks in, but there is still that murmur in her mind that declares her pathetic, just like her mother, just like Sam. Only she is not trapped by any man, but by her own sins. Margaret closes her eyes, awake.
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