Knife Man

♦◊♦

My husband wanted to have a family gathering. He gets the urge to connect to his bloodline when he feels old. The closer he gets to 50, the more he starts rethinking his youthful choices, what he has denied himself, us. I refuse to entertain his regrets but sometimes I feel so sad for him I let him come in mouth after we have sex and he thinks that’s love. He likes to plan family gatherings around a theme. He decided we would have a Mexican fiesta, asked me to make my popular homemade salsa. I took out Theo’s knives, in their black enamel case. They hummed. I admired the blades. I sliced a large quantity of tomatoes. My fingers became pruned. I chopped red onions but did not cry. My husband did as he sat at the kitchen table watching me. He said, “It’s strange how you don’t cry when you chop onions.”

“There are a lot of things about me you seem to find strange.”

He snorted, reached into the bowl of freshly chopped tomatoes and grabbed a handful, ate them, the red juices running down his forearm. He came up behind me at the counter and wrapped his arms around me, started rocking us from side to side. He said, “I love you because of your strangeness.” I kept chopping onions but leaned into him. The blade was so sharp it made no sound as it moved through the onion flesh; even the hum was silenced. He rested his chin against my shoulder. His chin is very sharp.

“You don’t regret me, do you?”

I made another slice, paused. I told him the truth.

♦◊♦

You can meet a man when you’re 19 years old and he will say you won’t ever have to struggle again and you are already so tired. He’ll pay for your expensive tuition at the elite university you clawed your way into and when you graduate summa cum laude he’ll give you a diamond ring in the nicest restaurant you’ve ever been in. He’ll marry you and it will be enough because you don’t know any better. You’ll eventually become successful in your own right but it won’t matter. Years later, he’ll offer the fruit of your womb to his sister when hers is barren because it never crosses his mind you might want to keep the fruit of your womb for yourself. You won’t say no because no one has ever minded you when you’ve said that word. He’s not a bad man but he’s not thoughtful. Because he is your husband, he becomes the man with the knife when you give birth to your only child. As he cuts the umbilical cord in the hospital, his hands will shake not because he’s scared but he because it is only then he realizes what he has done, what he has taken from you. The surgical scissors will sever that thick sinew of membranes but the cord won’t be cut, not ever because it cannot be. After you see the child, your child, and realize how much a part of you she will always be, you understand, you both understand that you can’t leave the man who bought you when you were nineteen, not yet anyway, because without him you will have no just cause to see the child and that just cannot be.

♦◊♦

When his family arrived I sat on the back staircase alone, where it was dark, cool, quiet. We have nothing in common, his people and I. We are cordial but we are not close, not even now. I listened for Elsa’s footsteps. As soon as she ran into the house I could smell her and hear her breathing but I stayed where I was. I thought, “If she comes looking for me, I will make it through this day.” I leaned forward, resting my forehead against my knees. I waited. When I felt her hand on my head, I smiled into my lap.

I slid over and Elsa sat next to me. Her rolling pink suitcase stood in the corner at the base of the stairs. She said, “Thank goodness it’s the weekend.”

I forgot myself, said, “Mommy missed you, sweetheart.” We were alone so it was safe.

I patted my hand over my heart and Elsa covered my hand with hers, sliding her fingers between mine. I pulled her against me, against my ribcage, like a vital organ.

—photo by keith011764/flickr