Belladonna

TW: physical and verbal abuse, infidelity  

The squirrel was rust-coloured. Like decay. Like blood seeping into wet earth. It’s tiny rodent heart slammed against the confines of its tiny rodent chest. Well aware of impending human-presence, the squirrel took off into the underbrush, tiny muscles pumping, twig-like bones bounding. 

Like some great beast clawing itself out from the mist, the car’s lights cut through the dusk. The great Jabberwock with blazing yellow eyes. All grinding metal and ageing alloy, it grumbled, brake pads squealing as it took the corners The headlights cast a swath of light on the chipped garage door, pulling into the driveway.  

“Hiya Maren, I’m home.” His voice was all gravel and creaking wood as he entered the kitchen. Her hands were cloaked in yellow dish gloves, encased with shiny soap bubbles that glistened under sickly fluorescent lights. He glanced around the room. “Are you going to start dinner soon?”. The window was open to the night, letting the scent of damp moss and upturned earth filter through the house. An eclipse of moths murmured quietly against the screen. 

“Soon, sweetheart. I’m waiting for the lamb to defrost a little bit more”. Maren pulled the gloves off, one finger at a time. She turned to meet his gaze. 

“Did you get held up at the firm?”, she asked, moving to check the lamb chops, prodding them with her finger. “I thought you said you only had a half-day today”. Pivoting slightly, she reached over to preheat the oven.

“Yeah, Collins wanted me to stay a little bit longer to finalize the documents for Wednesday’s court hearing”.. 

“Oh, okay”, she hesitated, chopping garlic with her back to him, then, “please just call me next time, so I don’t worry about you”. A beat passed, the weight of it stagnating in the space between them. The thrum of the moths grew louder. She continued, “do you want your potatoes mashed or roasted?” 

He turned to face her again. The pallor of his skin was stretched tight over pointed bones and his brow hung on the precipice of his forehead, casting his face in a perpetual shade. His pores glistened on his cheeks. Oil-slicked. “What? Do you not trust me?”

“Of course I trust you! I just wanted to ensure you’re okay. I worry, you know? It’s natural.”. Rosemary fell onto the lamb. Aluminum foil glittered in the cooking pan. Convection fans whirred in the belly of the oven like a swarm of locusts. Against the backdrop of silence, the moths frantically hurled themselves against the screen of the window. 

“No, I don’t know”, he turned her around, his wide hand tight around the meat of her forearm. “You don’t trust me”. His eyes were a deep brown and seemingly bottomless. They had intrigued her the first time they had met. She thought it had made him seem mysterious. Alluring. Now it just made him seem half-alive - like something was devouring him from the inside out. Bones, tendons, cartilage, and sallow skin all consumed by this thing; this seeping poisonous mass. “I’m fine. I’m a strong man, so worrying about me is a fruitless endeavor. I don’t need to call you, okay? If something happens to me, you’ll be the first to know”. His eyes looked hollow; like great, mawing pits set into the protruding bones of his face. He stared at her for a beat longer, jaw muscles working furiously. ”I’m going to prepare some court documents for next week. I’ll be in my office. Call me when dinner is done”. And then the kitchen was empty. 

Maren had met her husband at university. She had been a second-year botany student and he had been in his first-year of law school. The party had been crowded and hot, filled with pot smoke and the nauseating fragrance of cheap beer. He had been a welcome respite, all charming smiles and silver-tongued flirtations.  

He had been so kind. His level of attention had been unparalleled, with his ability to recall trivial things she’d told him in passing. When she had panic attacks or slipped into a depressive episode, he was there to hold her, reassure her with soft words. His smile had been a bouquet of flowers, spilling love and admiration.

But all pretense had since fallen away. He had pulled her in, caught her in his sticky grasp, and tied them together with the bending of a knee and a sealing kiss in some vast cathedral. But now there was no need for the guise he had assumed. The man she once knew gradually slipped away as he peeled the facade away. Underneath, there was some sick, insecure beast - a kraken - that festered in the basin of his gut.

Now, those enthralling, suggestive smiles and honeyed words weren’t directed at her. Despite their years of shared experience, he had gotten bored of her; moved on. All the classic signs were there, of course. He was staying out later and later every night. Each time she entered a room, he’d flip his cellphone over, desperately trying to hide the wariness in his eyes with a forced half-smile. He spent more time in the tanning bed than his marital bed. As the sun rose each morning, he made his way to the gym, a homemade protein shake or smoothie tucked into the crook of his arm. 

For her part, she had felt a distance between them for several years, like an empty chasm. Some great void stretched out beneath and between them, the gap widening a little more with each passing day. They say that all things are attracted to one another by the universal force of gravity. Nevertheless, it seemed like a switch had been flipped and they were rushing away, repelled by one another. All affection had dissolved, like sugar in hot tea. Chaste kisses and brief hugs. They were like doctors performing a routine surgery; quick, effective, and ever aseptic.

She didn’t blame the other woman, of course. Her husband should have more restraint. But at this point, she felt so untethered from him that she was able to keep her composure for the most part. A fire burned in the bowels of her abdomen each time he smiled smugly, thinking he had gotten away with it. But other than that, it was perfectly manageable. After all, their son, Liam, was barely five at the time, and there was no need to burden him with the weight of his parents’ divorce. She had time. She could wait, coiled in her frustration, biding her time.

After all, she had been keeping receipts. For months, he had been making suspicious transfers from their joint bank account into his personal fund. She found careless lipstick marks on the collar of some of his shirts while doing laundry. Most of all, she had photos from her friends that showed her unfaithful spouse slipping into hotel lobbies with some pretty young thing. 

Once their son, Liam, was a little older and more emotionally independent, Maren would take her husband to court. She would show the proof to the judge. And then ever so politely and courteously, she would reign judicial hellfire down on her darling spouse, wringing every last bit of child and spousal support from him. 

One afternoon the air was heady with the scent of lilac trees and damp earth. Jabbing her screen, Maren hung up on her husband. "Bastard”, she muttered under her breath. He had promised to make it home on time to take their son to the park. She had wanted so badly for Liam to have a decent father figure and not let his marital coldness or infidelity taint her son’s relationship with his father. But of course, he was “staying late at work” again. She turned into the living room, where Liam was playing with a set of decorative pinecones. 

“Daddy has to stay at work a little late”, she said, dropping to a crouch to look at her son. His eyes were nothing like his father’s: instead of a blank darkness, his were warm and ancient, like sunlight glittering through primordial amber. “Do you want to go for a walk in the forest?”, she asked. “I can show you some pretty flowers”. 

The slanted light filtering through the trees helped to calm her fried nerves. She clutched Liam’s left hand in her’s, his right hand occupied with a frayed teddy bear. He insisted on bringing Pickles when him wherever he went. 

 “What’s that one, mommy?”, he asked, his voice lilting and soft.

“That’s belladonna. You can never ever eat those berries or the leaves. Don’t even touch them or pick them, okay, sweetheart?”

“Why?”

“They’re poisonous. When mommy was in school, she had to keep your daddy from eating them when they went on a hiking trip. You know how he loves berries. Even a little could kill you, so please be careful.”

“Silly daddy.”

He wandered into a patch of flowers, the light spilling down tree trunks to catch in his brown hair. The strands shone like filaments in a halogen bulb, vibrant and luminous. “What’s this one?”. He pointed to a group of delicate white flowers. They swayed in the faint breeze, their stalks touching and then coming apart, as if engaged in some intricate waltz.

“That’s Queen Anne’s Lace. That one is actually edible. There are lots of plants that are edible, you just have to be careful about which ones you pick. Would you like to gather some to have with dinner?”.  

“Yeah!”

Arms overflowing with wildflowers and assorted greenery, they made their way back to the house. The days were growing shorter, and the light took on an otherworldly quality. Pale yellows and golds outlined them, turning them ethereal. Their shadows danced ahead of them in the waning twilight. 

That night, the cologne’s scent slunk its way into the house, like some duplicitous predator. It drifted and expanded across the expanse of the front hall ahead of his entrance. Underneath, there was a different fragrance. Some sort of expensive perfume. It was cloying. Vanilla and honey and something else nauseatingly sweet. Attempts to cover it up with that sour, musky cologne had been utterly futile. He offered no explanation for his absence, only apologized to Maren for his lateness and turned to go take a shower. 

Days flickered past like a series of movie frames. Summer faded into autumn. Pinks and greens blurring to every shade of fire. The trees cloaked themselves in reds and oranges, then swiftly disrobed, blanketing the damp ground with a carpet of leaves. The air took on a new quality; a bright sharpness that contrasted the sweet, rounded warmth of the summer months.

The night sky was swirled with an expanse of stars. She killed the engine, pushing the keys into her purse. Light poured out from the unshaded windows like honey over glass. She had been at a business dinner. Apparently, environmental researchers really know how to party.

Liam wavered on the threshold to the front hall. There was a mark on his jaw. A bruise, blossoming like a carnation unfurling in the sun. She could picture the blood vessels, the capillaries bursting under his skin and her heart heaved. Maren dragged her gaze upwards to her husband.

“What happened?”. Her voice was tremulous, rising an octave in concern. “Is he alright?”

“Oh yeah, he’s fine,” He reached down to ruffle Liam’s hair. The boy flinched away, turning his head by nearly imperceptible degrees away from his father’s touch. Her heart lurched again, a sharp knife of fear in her gut. “Poor little guy wasn’t paying attention and cracked the side of his face against the coffee table. We put some ointment on it. I think he just needs some rest.”

Later that night, in the sanctuary of Liam’s bedroom, Maren tucked him into his racecar bed. She flicked her eyes to the doorway of his room, alert. Leaning closer, she breathed a question: “Did daddy have anything to do with your bruise? Did he hurt you?”. 

But Liam only shook his head, repeating his father’s excuse almost verbatim. He elaborated, explaining that he had been reaching for Pickles when he tripped on a loose edge of the carpet and hit his face. The response was detached and seemed practiced, rehearsed. A pit of fear grew, like a tumour, in her abdomen. 

The horrible thing was that her husband didn’t even drink; thought it poisoned the mind. His father hadn’t been abusive, nor was his mother overbearing. A trust fund kid, he’d had life handed to him on a silver platter. He had no limp excuses to reach for when he raised his voice or threw things against the wall. The darkness was something innate - something animalistic and patriarch-born that said that he had the right to assert dominance over anyone who displeased him. Even his son. Anger raked through Maren with a ferocity she did not know she possessed. The next day, she would take her son and exit the house, leaving divorce papers trailing in her wake. 

Early one morning, in the aftermath of a sharp-edged argument, the house fell deathly still. Maren’s husband exuded a twitchy energy; a festering, convulsing clump of cockroaches that permeated the wallpaper of the house. This violence was buried somewhere in his chest, wrapping around his heart like tentacles, like slippery tendrils of darkness. It bubbled and burned. Venom under his skin. The kraken in his ribs shuddered and writhed. 

The tension building around him, he suddenly pushed Liam to the floor. Hot, shimmering tears rose to the corners of his son’s eyes. “You’re too old for that goddamned teddy bear! You’ve got to learn to be a man!” Her husband’s voice was caustic, dripping with anger. 

Rage bubbled in Maren’s stomach, hot and vicious. Creeping, oozing thoughts occupied the antechamber of her mind. Like some immense creature heaving itself across an empty hallway, pressing against the edges of her conscious awareness. The antediluvian truth of the love for her son burned hot against the wide expanse of her sternum, and a terrible calm overtook, an image solidifying in her mind. Her husband might have had a kraken in his chest. But god, she had a leviathan - a veritable behemoth - roiling, burning in the hollow of her gut. It traced its way up her throat, pulsed against the corrugated column of her spine, igniting her nerve endings, engulfing her. 

She ushered Liam out of the room, drying his tears and brushing his hair back from his forehead with whispered kisses. Then she called her sister, who came to pick the boy up from their house, Pickles in tow. 

Later that morning, she made her husband’s protein smoothie. The blender screamed in the cavern of the kitchen, building to a crescendo, a terrible cacophony of whirling blades. He emerged from their bedroom, adjusting his tie with practiced fingers. Glancing up at her, he muttered, “Listen, I’m sorry for what happened earlier with Liam. It won’t happen again”.

She carved a smile into the lines of her face. The smoothie sloshed into a tall cup and she wiped away the overflow with a dish rag. “Yes, I’m positive it won’t happen again”, she replied, her voice soft and sweet. “Here, drink up! I made it special, just for you.” 

The drink slipped, thick and clotted, down his throat, the muscles of his esophagus rising and falling with each heavy gulp. He wiped his mouth and looked over at his wife as she leant against the kitchen counter, gazing at him placidly in the morning sunshine.

“Hm, this tastes different. Very sweet. Did you add anything else?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Maren’s mouth. When she spoke, her voice was soft, serene. Almost purring. “Yes. Berries. Freshly picked.”.