The Rug That Remains

I sit on the rug in my living room, the same rug that holds my secrets, the ones that were swept under decades ago. I listen to the birds create a barrier around me. Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, American Redstarts all intertwined together like a spider-web.

I saw a red fox this morning; he had a dead mole in its mouth, chomping on its lifeless head and then with it hanging out of its mouth he dug a hole, placed his meal into the shallow dirt coffin and buried it, prancing away as if the funeral was over.

But it had just begun. But not for the mole. For me.

My right foot falls asleep and the tingles radiate through my toes like electric pulses as I push up to a stand. The house is empty and I limp towards the kitchen. The stark white cabinets are bare; no pots, pans, no dirty dishes reside, just an empty lonely room that once had life bustling within it. One that had screaming toddlers refusing meals they ate the day before, one that had smells of curried chickpeas and rice.

I turn the kitchen light off and scan the rest of this once called home. Everything is different and I’m not sure I like it.

Toddlers have grown into adults, my husband has turned away from me, and me, well, I hardly know where this house begins and I end.

My skin feels cold and dry as I rub an aching shoulder muscle, like blood isn’t rushing through my veins, like a heart isn’t pulsing through these empty bones and the feeling forces me to remove my hand from my shoulder.

Leaving this house, I’m not sure what it’ll mean. Too many memories, too many fights, too many excuses lie within these walls. They only begin to crack and break if I shut this door for good, and I’m not terribly sure I am ready to let it all go. I am comfortable here, I am welcomed here, I am justified and honored here. But outside of this, outside of these walls, I am crunched and broken like that mole in the fox’s mouth—laid in the shallow dirt of my grave.

I turn the light back on and walk back over to the sliding glass door and sit criss-crossed on the only thing left in the house—the rug. Not sure why I didn’t pack that up and move it out too, I just couldn’t get myself to remove it, it was too heavy.

We buried my cat, Ketchup, out back, the same cat, who died on my birthday when I was two months pregnant. We buried him within minutes of him dying—well my husband did. I couldn’t bear to touch something dead. He dug a hole on the hillside of the woods and placed him within the ground—we said a few words and went back inside. The next day he was dug up by some animal and my husband placed him back in the hole, but he must not have dug deep enough again because eight to ten vultures swarmed the sky above and perched on the trees around him. He lost his eyes that day and lots of fur and skin my husband said. I couldn’t get myself to help him rebury the cat a third time.

This time he dug down deep, and placed a giant rock atop his now three-time grave. He has been resting there since, undisturbed. It seems common knowledge that things will stay buried if they’re placed deep enough. One can hope.

I’m not sure why this memory came back to me as I scanned the backyard while sitting upon my rug. But maybe because there was nothing left out there that was mine. No children’s toys, no tomato pots, no solar lights or sandbox. No wind chimes. Just my dead cat, Ketchup.

A knock sounds at my front door and I raise an eyebrow and stand to go look through the peephole. Who could be visiting a dead person?

I undo the chain latch, the deadbolt and the lock on the handle and slowly open the door. My eye level was clear of anything but air and I hover my foot above the ground. About to step, I quickly retreat and that’s when I see it, a baby.

A tiny bundle swaddled in a hospital receiving blanket. The newborn lies perfectly still, unaware it was just left here at my doorstep. Abandoned and alone.

I close the door and lock it back up.

I go back to my place on the rug and sit criss-crossed again, watching the world with life running through it. I scan the trees, the scurrying chipmunks and climbing squirrels and envy the breath in their lungs.

The knock at the door sounds again and I stand back up. I undo the chain latch, the deadbolt, and the lock on the handle, the door feels heavier this time as I open it—the baby is still there.

I begin to close the door again, almost completely shut when the little life makes a noise. A squeal like sound, one I knew will progress into a full cry of hunger, or discomfort and instinctively I bend down and scoop up the bundle.

Locking all the locks and carrying the infant back into the living room, I sit down on the rug; like Rachel unwilling to stand up and reveal her idols, I don’t move.

I unbundle the swaddle and a naked baby girl moves her limbs like something that needs oiling to move smoother. Her umbilical cord is still connected to her belly, snaking out from within the blanket and it moves without anyone touching it. It snakes around and finds me. I swat at it, and scurry away from the snake dropping the baby to the floor, but it’s faster than me, quicker than I can move and slithers itself up my shirt and latches onto my belly-button. There is a slight pinch, but no real pain. I yank at it. Squeeze it. Try to pry it free. But the harder I pull, the tighter it latches onto me. Like a leech or a remora fish, the umbilical cord has attached itself to my flesh.

For whatever reason I stop fighting it and I feel something within me rushing through the cord, and I grow tired, almost like the infant is taking the life within me for itself.

I let the sleepiness take over and I lay down on my rug next to the sleeping infant. I cradle the little thing close to my bosom, which once fed my own child and allow sleep to come, a peace I wasn’t expecting.

Embracing the sleeping child, hugging it like it’s my own I soak in the moments like it is keeping me alive. Filling me back up with life.

I am not sure how much time has passed since I first fell asleep, but I didn’t expect myself to wake back up. But cuddled next to innocent life, innocent blood, an innocent heart—unlike my life, my blood or my heart, feels warm.

Looking down at the infant, I nearly throw it aside with a startled jump. The infant is no longer an infant but a toddler. At least thirty-six inches long, and twenty-five pounds is stretched out at my side. I couldn’t have been sleeping for three years.

The toddler sits up as she sees my eyes opened. She takes her little finger and places it on my eyes, then my mouth, and then my nose.

“Who are you?” I ask the toddler.

She quickly recoils herself and bashfully puts her head down. Dropping her nose to her chest and avoids my eyes she has just touched. Toddlers are so curious until someone acknowledges them, then their curiosity turns into a cautious shyness afraid of the world seeing too much of them—a fear we all share.

“I like your yellow dress.” I tell her and she looks down at it and fumbles with the fabric in her little hand.

“What color is this one?” I gently point to the flower right by her belly button and I see the umbilical cord sticking out and I follow the vine and stop at my own abdomen. I stare at it, unsure and uneasy about the gray, slimly-looking vine. I reach to touch it, when she speaks.

“Red.” Her high-pitched squeaky voice is almost too soft to hear.

“Red, yes. It’s red. And what about this one?”

“Yellow.” She begins rocking from side to side with a smile she is trying to hide.

“Good girl, yes, that is yellow. And what about this one?” I point to her chest where no flowers reside, just stripes. She looks down and I can see her brain trying to figure out how to answer—the gears turning, her eyes slightly squinting.

“Those are stripes,” she says and I don’t expect a toddler to respond with such assuredness.

“These are flowers.” She continues pointing to the bottom of the dress.

“Oh, yes, you’re right.” I scratch at my head slightly and offer her a small smile and she returns one and just stares.

A child’s stare can be the most uncomfortable. Their eyes pierce you, they barely blink and they don’t know it’s rude. So, I stare back; taking in every detail, every nook and cranny of this beautiful little human. Do I feel something beating within me?

The umbilical cord wiggles and we both stare down at it. She doesn’t seem fazed by the root between us, but my stomach turns at the sight. Raising my shirt I examine it. I pull and tug again but as I tug it shortens and pulls the little girl closer to me. I pull it as hard as I can and it rips from my stomach leaving teeth like blood marks around my navel. I scream out in pain and a loud thud sounds in front of me and the tiny little girl lies limp on the ground. Her arms spread out wide and her face is turned to the side as if she was still staring at me.

“Hey!” I shout and rush over and lift her into my arms, her head falls back and I quickly adjust it so it’s resting within the crook of my elbow.

The cord begins to coil itself in and I grab it before it disappears for good within her body. It feels wet and moves like a worm. I place it near my stomach but it won’t latch. It won’t suck on. It won’t bite down.

“Please, please!” I scream into the empty room besides the rug under our bodies and wipe the blood away from my skin, and with the blood gone it expands quickly and crunches down onto my belly like a vacuum hose.

I move her curls from her face and watch as she blinks slowly and stares up into my eyes. When is it time to disconnect an umbilical cord, isn’t when the child is out of the womb? A tear falls from my cheek and lands on her chin and she touches the wet spot with her index finger.

“Don’t cry.” She says sweetly and stands to her feet and holds my face in her two hands.

“Who are you?”

“You.”

“No, who are you.” I point my finger at her.

“You.” She says again.

“What’s your name?”

“Eve.”

I squint my eyes and tilt my head examining her. Without thinking I lift up a corner of the rug and there it lies. A birth certificate.

Eve Gardens, born January 1, 1994.

I hold my birth certificate in my hands and I look between her and the paper. Flipping the paper over attached by a paper clip, is a photo of a newborn—the same one I just moments before held to my bosom and slept.

“What’s that?” She asks me.

“It’s my birth certificate.” I say and look up at the now ten year old little girl.

Startled I nearly rip the cord again from my stomach, but my moving back so fast tugged at the cord and the little girl, Eve, fell forward onto her hands and knees.

“Careful.” She giggles and stands back up.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I made you fall.”

“It happens.” She shrugs her shoulders and turns to look outside.

My empty home beckons me to leave. Tells me to get out of here and don’t come back. How badly I want to evacuate, how desperate I am to escape its walls. I look around at the decaying surroundings. Mold stains the corners, the baseboards are rotten and paint strips in large panels. The stench is awfully dreadful like a corpse in the sun. My corpse, my body.

“Are you okay?” Eve asks me.

“No, I’m dead.” I say and her eyes bulge from her face.

“Dead?”

I don’t answer her but stand up and watch the cord stretch and make itself longer. Eve stays on the rug and I move around. The bedroom empty, the bathroom too. Each closet lies bare and naked. Out of the corner of my eye I see the little girl lift up a corner of the rug.

“Wait!” I scream and rush back over, but its too late.

A plethora of garbage spills out and fills every empty space in the empty house.

Old clothes from years before, journals, family keepsakes, and items that don’t even belong to me spill out, piling up before our eyes.

“What is all this?” Eve says with a deeper tone to her voice and I turn and stare at a teenager. One I could recognize anywhere. The awkward features, the lanky arms, the hairstyle, the acne on her chin.

I stretch out my hand and touch her and she watches me—my heart aches for the innocence gone in such eyes.

“You’re beautiful.” I whisper to her.

“If you say so.”

“Are you…” I stop mid sentence as a song from decades past begins playing and I turn my head towards its sound.

I walk towards the pile of junk and pull out a notebook. Details of a younger me fill the pages and my stomach twists as I read accounts I thought I buried long ago—turned out not deep enough as it was laid to rest in the shallow pit under my rug.

Ripping the pages I toss the book aside and choose another item I thought was disposed of years before. The familiar smell of an old t-shirt drenched in tears, blood, and sweat races my heart and I hate it. Dry heaving, I throw it in the pile with the notebook.

“What is all this?” Eve asks again.

“Trash I thought I got rid of.”

“Can I see?” She looks up at me and I stare face to face at my young adult self.

“Suit yourself.”

“Why’d you keep all this?”

“I didn’t realize.”

I watch as she rummages through the pile, tossing it all to the side except one item she places in her pocket that looks like a folded piece of paper. She looks back at me and smiles as she takes out a match box from her other pocket. She strikes it and I watch the flame dance amongst the shadows of long forgotten suitcases and baggage.

The entire pile ignites and the room is nearly all in flames in a matter of seconds, burning through remnants and portions of regret, anger, and everything in between.

“Run!” She screams at me and pushes me towards the exit.

The smoke fills my lungs and I cough as I gasp for air.

“Get out!” She yells from the other side of the flame.

“How?” I scream over the silent flames.

“Run!”

The umbilical cord stretches between us. I can feel the sting from the fire as it burns through the fleshy vine and severs us. Eve falls to the ground like a tree. Another loud thud. I turn and run for the door with the fire at my ankles. Leaving her behind is the only option. Leaving her there amongst the past is the only way.

I undo the chain latch, the deadbolt and the lock on the handle and I run.

I run into the blue skies, my feet firmly planted on the ground with each step. I run until I can’t anymore and I drop to my knees in surrender. The smell of fire and smoke fills the air and I turn slightly to see my house ablaze. Not an inch is without flame.

But then I feel myself. I feel the breath in my lungs, I feel the pulse back in my chest, and the blood rushing through my veins like a floodgate has been opened.

I’m alive. I think to myself.

And I watch as the place I once called home burns to the ground—and everything in it. The baby, the toddler, the child, the teenager, and then the young adult. They all got me to here, outside of the house. Breathing. Conscious. Transcendent.

I thought death was sure if I left, but I see I’ve escaped the place that was killing me.

Reaching into my pocket I pull out a single item. A folded piece of paper.

You will be free indeed, it reads and I take a deep breath. I toss the paper into the wind and walk away from the flames—not looking back, not ever. A pillar of salt I will not be.

I hear a small voice within; the sound of an infant crying.

“Shhh.” I say gently and place my hand over my heart. The crying softly dissipates into the birdsong up above—the heavens.

“It’s all going to be okay.” I sing to the child and keep walking.

I just keep walking.