Spoiler! :
Dear Johanna,
Today you are seven. Happy birthday! It’s been so long, sweetheart, since I’ve written to you, but I want you to remember that I still love you very, very much. And I haven’t forgotten about you; I will never forget.
Seven years ago, I saw you for the first time. Seven years ago today, I tried to talk to you, although I knew that you couldn’t talk back, and when they took you away, I screamed. They had to restrain me because I wouldn’t stop screaming after you, screaming for you. I cried until my eyes were dried out, until I could barely breathe and I felt that I wanted to drown.
But today’s your birthday. All those nurses will have forgotten by now. They live a life of resigned repetition. They’ve dealt with so many cases like yours. So why in the world would their associations of December 17th have anything to do with your birthday? Why would their memories be anchored to you?
They won’t remember, Johanna, but don’t cry because of them. Because Mummy remembers your birthday. I always will. To me December is not a time of ripe, scarlet Christmas berries, of wreaths hung on doors, of wrapped up presents or the smell of cinnamon and apples or the glistening Christmas lights strung upon the branches of trees or tinsel or Christmas carols … No, to me, December is none of that. The only memory December brings to my heart is a memory of you.
The memory of how I talked to you and how I begged you to talk back, how I squeezed you as if you were a useless dog toy, how I shook you as if to see whether anything inside would rattle, how I hit you, how I hit my own baby and I screamed at her – at you – and the nurses were watching and that was when they came rushing over and prised you from my arms until you fell like a limp doll to the floor, and I was still screaming because you wouldn’t talk to me, but I know that if you could have, you would have. You would have.
The nurses, then, were nothing more than monsters to me. They leered at me as I desperately tried to reach for you, always keeping you just a metre or so out of reach, their faces cold and stiff and unfeeling, their noses like cruel beaks and their eyes nothing more than cold black marbles encrusted in their sockets. They took you away from me. They took you away and along with you, they took everything away from me.
I remember that, too. I remember your face, so tiny and pinched in on itself. I remember my face, because for a moment then, I stepped outside of my body and I watched myself raging. I watched myself as my fingernails dug into my skin, drawing blood, but I didn’t feel anything, because it wasn’t me in there. I stood helplessly by the side and I watched, and I begged, and I hoped. I called for you. They shut the door in my face and they wouldn’t tell me a thing.
But darling, you don’t need to know any of that. I don’t want you to think that I’m insane, even though I suppose that I am, driven mad by your absence from my life. But I know that doesn’t matter anymore.
You’re the only one I have left to write to. You’re the only one who stayed with me, even though you’re no longer there, even though you were never there. Every night, for seven years, I lay in what would have been your bed and became you. I became you at breakfast, and I ate for two, as if you were still growing inside my belly. I guess that I hoped you were. I tried to cut open my stomach once, years ago, and I tried to dig you out, but it was all in vain. They locked me up in hospital and they wouldn’t let me out for months. I stayed there, rotting, uncaring, lost without you.
They wouldn’t have let me be your mother, even if it were possible. They would have taken you anyway, afraid that I would kill you. But honey, I would never kill you. If I had two options, and they were killing everyone else in the world and killing you, I would choose the first.
Yet you tell me that I did kill you. You tell me it’s all my fault. You tell me that I’m going to kill again, and oh God, Johanna, I’m so afraid.
You died before you were born, Johanna, and I want nothing more than to join you. To join you and Tim, your Daddy, because you both died and went to that place high up above the clouds. Johanna, baby, it’s your seventh birthday. Seven years ago today you were born, and your face was a pale blue, pinched in on itself. Your umbilical cord was wrapped around your neck. You tried to come out with your feet first, and I couldn’t push you hard enough. When you came out, you wouldn’t speak to me. Not a cry, not a cough, not a breath. I shook you like a limp rag doll, because that’s all you were. I screamed at you. Then I hit you and they came and they took you away.
For seven years I haven’t seen you. Seven years too long.
I have it all prepared now, baby. The bath full of warm water to prevent the blood from clotting. The sharp razor blade. The sleeping pills. I’m in the bathroom right now, and I’m undressing. My body is corpulent, grotesque underneath my clothes. So many scars already mar my skin, from when I tried to dig the demons out from beneath it.
And now you're speaking to me again, Johanna. You're telling me that I’m going to have to make it quick. You've spoken to me ever since you died. I've always known it was your voice; childlike, innocent, haunting every hour of my every day.
I want to join you up in Heaven, Johanna, but now you're telling me that I’ll never reach Heaven. When I die, I’ll rot in hell, you say.
Seven years, and not a thing has changed.
The razor blade is so sharp. The water is burning my legs. This letter is lying by the side of the bath now, and I’m writing to you as I slide in. You’re telling me to hurry up, for God’s sake.
“Yes, Johanna, sweetheart,” I’m whispering, “It won’t be long now.” Why is the world so misty? Why is my mind so unclear? Why do you interrupt me every time I try to think?
And now I’m praying, Johanna, on my hands and knees in this dirty bathwater, dirty because I’m kneeling in it, praying, praying …
The razor is in my hand, so cold and sharp and unyielding.
Seven years was too long, Johanna. And I won’t let it be any longer.
The sleeping pills, forced down my throat, one by one. They catch. I choke, but I swallow them. I taste their bitterness under my tongue, but I swallow them. I swallow them for you, Johanna.
Does it hurt to die, Johanna?
I don’t think it hurts more than it hurts to live.
I’m coming, sweetheart. I’ve made the cut but the pain is nothing compared to the pain of losing you. I’m writing with my left hand now, watching the blood spurt out from my right artery, gasping, crying, and I can hear you laughing. And it’s such a welcome sound.
But the world is swimming, and the pain is so immense. Baby, I love you. Why do you hate me? I didn’t kill you, I swear I didn’t. I would never do such a terrible thing.
You were stillborn. The nurses said so …
I’m going to die, Johanna.
But don’t forget that I love you.
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