To blame the victim

I met Aida volunteering in a local marathon event when I was twenty two. The summer humidity made me shine with sweat and my clothes and hair stuck to my skin like an ill fitted glove; I wasn’t even a runner. She was two inches shorter and five times fitter than I was and looked more composed than an athlete should after completing forty two kilometres. Our first interaction began when I passed her a disposable cup of water; that wasn’t the last drink we shared.

We were a perfect match, that’s what she always said. She was the only one that called me ‘Em’ and was proud of that.

I moved out of my parent’s place at twenty four to live with her in an apartment close to the city, cutting ties with them completely. They hadn’t supported who I was at all. I let them have their outdated ideas, Aida was my new rail to hold on to.

When we arrived, the walls were bare like canvases; blank slates for memories to form. My brother, Sal, helped us carry boxes into the empty rooms. He was tall, dignified and composed, with a carefree attitude I admired. He had a shaved head and an ear piercing on his left cartilage. He was six years my elder, and I followed in his slipstream.

He graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering when I was eighteen and moved away to live in a shared house with seven other people. I envied his maturity and strived for his success. My parents called him ‘the family pride.’ I thought he was brilliant.

Sal was the opposite of my parents. He loved who I was. When he met Aida, he shook her hand and gave her the widest smile I had seen on his face.

Sal still talked to mum and dad. They weren’t changing.

Aida and I had a happy homelife. Her parents were lovely and supportive. She and I were in love, and I was in love with life. I saw Sal every fortnight when he came over for dinner. He was always busy with work but seeing him even rarely was a joy. He looked healthy and happy as usual and he had countless stories to tell about his co-workers or housemates. He seemed as though he was growing taller and brighter every day but that may have been my projection.

By then, our apartment was blank no longer. Framed photos of two happy women lined the walls. Piles of things we had accumulated over the years filled shelves and corners. We were blissful. We were happy. Aida ran every day, and I was always there when she arrived home to cook us dinner. The top contact on my phone was Sal and all my photos were of her.

Four years into our relationship, she handed me a ring. It was a simple, silver band and it meant everything. It wasn’t a wedding ring, but it was what we both wanted; we knew we couldn’t get married.

Sal loved it. He took a picture of the two of us and put it on his bedroom wall.

That was the stretch of euphoria I miss the most. I rode those days like a wave, and I never looked back. I had created a little circle of friends and of people I loved. It felt like an impenetrable wall.

Five years in, Aida wanted a child. The suggestion had caught me by surprise. It was something I hadn’t even considered before. She wanted to carry it. She wanted it to be our biological child. She wanted it to have my genes.

She wanted a donation from Sal.

By then I was twenty seven, but I felt like I had graduated high school a year prior. Sure, I had been through years of university, I had moved out, I had a partner, but I wasn’t adult in anything but physical age.

I wasn’t ready for a child, and I wasn’t ready to ask my brother for a sperm donation. Aida told me she would be artificially inseminated. I swallowed, nodded and agreed.

So Aida asked me to talk to Sal and I told myself I would do it. Every day she would ask if I had done it, every time I would tell her that I had forgotten, or Sal was busy, or I was tired. Every time Sal asked me how Aida and I were, I’d answer vaguely and move on. I told myself I would do it. If not tomorrow, then a week. Or maybe the next time Sal came over. Maybe it was better if I told him at a dinner out. Should I ask my parents first?

Eventually, Aida stopped asking, and I stopped pretending to forget. I’d continue to brush of Sal’s questions of concern and the whole thing was forgotten.

But the damage had been done. Aida wasn’t the same person anymore. She giggled and joked, but without the lustre I had fallen in love with. She smiled with an empty haze in her eyes. She’d stare longingly at families on the street and come home and pass out on the couch. I wouldn’t say a word. I’d cook us dinner. I’d do the washing. She’d thank me and go to bed. Sal came over less and less. Eventually four months could go by without speaking to each other.

And Sal wouldn’t ask how Aida was anymore. He sounded tired on the phone, and our conversations lasted minutes before they tapered off into silence.

So I went out and saw friends on my own. Movie nights and dinners, I avoided the obvious questions that they would ask me until it just became routine that I no longer took my partner to things anymore. My friends called me Em. I ignored all calls I received, including the ones from my brother.

Aida was drinking when I went out. She’d left a wine bottle on the table. That night I had cried and cried and slammed my hands against the wall. I was drunk, surely. I found her passed out on the couch. I kissed everywhere on her face and I shook her until she woke up groggily. I said I’d take her to bed. I said everything would be okay. I said I’d fix it all.

The next day was the twenty eighth of August 2016. If someone were to ask me to recall that day, I could recount it minute by minute in excruciating detail. It started with a late wake up. Ten thirty two in the morning. Aida was beside me, sleeping soundly under the crumpled sheets. I was hungover and exhausted. She looked angelic.

My phone was on twenty two percent. I unlocked it and called my brother. I was going to ask him if he would be a donor for us. If he would help us have a child. I was going to tell him I loved him and he was always there for me when I needed it.

Sal didn’t answer on my first call, or my second or third. I waited for an hour, and tried again. No response.

I was drowsy and lightheaded. I nearly ran Aida’s car into the back of a stopping vehicle on the freeway. The traffic was heavy, I was impatient. I needed to make up for the lost time. I needed to make Aida smile again. A true smile. I could imagine her holding a child. The two of us sitting in the living room as a family. She’d be happy. A red and blue strobe light faded through the morning fog a few cars down.

As the traffic thinned out, the flashing lights remained ahead of me as I navigated to Sal’s home. The glow illuminated every street I took until the blue and red beacon was flashing a colourful light show display on the driveway of my brother’s house. A small crowd or five or so stood outside the Victorian era house. Each dreary figure was either miserable or shocked as they comforted each other like grieving statues. I double checked, triple checked. None were Sal. Sal was inside the house. My stomach churned and boiled.

I parked haphazardly in the centre of the road. The house seemed to retreat every time I approached it. I received looks and warnings. I brushed them off. A person held my shoulder kindly and I shrugged it away. A man stood in front of me and told me everything was okay. I didn’t believe him. My brother was inside. He told me to wait outside. I stepped forward. The cold was piercing, I had forgotten a coat.

“Emily.” Someone called. Sal’s housemate, I recognised. She took me aside and hugged me. We had spoken once before but we were strangers. She took my hand and squeezed it tight. Her red eyes watered and leaked. I was too shell-shocked to move.

I remember yelling. I remember how hoarse my throat felt. I ripped my hands away and bolted into the open door of the two storey building. It was lightless and gloomy in there. The carpet was bumpy and uneven, covered in mud and dust. The walls were grimy and scuffed. It didn’t match its exterior aesthetic. I found out in that moment what Sal’s house looked like; I had never been.

I trampled through hallways and open doors, nearly tripping on a stray cable. The second floor creaked haphazardly, as my feet pounded against it. It was the second door on the left of the second storey, where I found him.

I only saw him for a split second, but that single visual will never leave my mind. No matter how many total hours I spent staring at his strong, defined, smiling face as he told his stories over dinner, the one image I will never forget is that single version of him I saw that August morning. That corpse of him, as his feet hovered above the floorboards, swaying with the wind.

The biggest tragedies arise when the victim is blamed.

Because no matter how much I missed him and mourned him and loved him, I was angry at him.

He was supposed to be my brother. He was supposed to be there for me. He was supposed to love me and care for me and not abandon me. He wasn’t supposed to leave me here with my ghosts. He was my solution, my saving grace. He was what was going to fix everything. He was going to make Aida happy again.

I was going to fix everything, and he ruined it.

Aida cried at his funeral. At the time I noticed this bitterly but I didn’t say anything. I, myself, wanted to scream. I wanted to interrupt everyone and tell them to stop feeling so sorry because he betrayed me. I wanted to take the sign that said, “In loving memory of Salvador Martin” and rip it to shreds, along with his smiling portrait that seemed to stare right at me.

My parents hugged me. I stood there motionless.

Aida and I returned to our home, and I was a mess. That evening was the first time I cried for him. Sal was my best friend and I missed him. He was everything I strived to be.

And I was supposed to be his sister. I was supposed to be there for him. I was supposed to love him and care for him and not abandon him.

But I didn’t.

It was my fault.

I betrayed him.