letter for camille

Camille, if you’re reading this, then something bad has happened, and I need help.  Please come as fast as you can. 

Please see if they’ll tell you where Garnet is.  I think they took her away.  She’s your goddaughter after all, and she’s only one year old, but if you get the chance, tell her I love her.

I don’t know how it could have gone so wrong.  Remember when we were in high school?  We thought we were gilded in gold.  We were bright and beautiful, and everything was ours for the taking. 

We were also young and very stupid.  Peter was going to university; I was going to be an actress.  Then I got pregnant.  I thought his mother would kill me, but I guess she thought I’d give her beautiful grandchildren, so I was forgiven.  They also had fat bank accounts, so it didn’t really matter.

You came to the wedding, but you never got to visit us in the new house.  I loved it.  You opened the door to space that reached up to the ceiling, and you looked up and there was this lovely crystal chandelier.  Swarovski, I’m told.  His grandmother’s gift.  The floor was marble.  On the left side the staircase curved up, sort of framing the space around the chandelier.  It ended at the hallway that led to the bedrooms.  When you opened your bedroom door in the morning, the first sight to greet you was the chandelier, with the sunlight from the tall windows striking the crystals.  The banisters at the top were waist-high, and it was easily twenty feet to the ground.  I liked imagining my daughter coming down the stairs when she’s eighteen, in a velvet evening gown.  I must have sent you the pictures that Peter took of me on the stairs.  Did I?  He said I sparkled so, the chandelier paled in comparison.  He said things like that, and they took my breath away.

And then Garnet came.  She was the love of Peter’s life.  It seems strange to resent my daughter for the smile that she put in Peter’s face, but I felt like I’d been replaced.

I was also no longer beautiful.  I was prom queen and had been in the cover of teen magazines, but now I sagged and bulged in all the wrong places.  I cried easily, and I got angry easily.

Did you know Peter got a bit successful with his camera?  He called himself a professional photographer, and he got projects that took him away from home for days at a time.  I guess that’s where the trouble started.  I found pictures of a woman hidden in Peter’s backpack.  Peter’s photography made me look like a sugar princess, but the woman in the pictures looked like a goddess.  I don’t believe they were commissioned photographs.  I wondered what honeyed words he used to get that smoking look in her eyes.  She was hot, and I hated her.

Of course he denied it.  He denied everything, until I caught them together.  Then we fought a lot, every night, it seemed, and he accused me of using post-partum depression to justify being a bitch.  He called me ugly.  Then he started hitting me when we fought.

But you see, I loved him.  I loved him then and I love him now.  I tried so hard to make it all better, said sorry, and could we start over?  I went to a shrink, got a makeover, started on a diet, but it didn’t get any better.  He came home to smile at Garnet, then he went out again.

Last week, he came home very late.  I waited up for him because I thought he might want some dinner, and I was in the baby’s room when he arrived.  He looked in, saw the baby was awake, and picked her up for a quick kiss.  Then he looked at me and said, I’m leaving you.  I’m taking Garnet.

I was stunned.  I was also very angry, and I didn’t understand what had gone wrong.  I thought we were good together.  I asked if it was the woman. 

I think maybe I started yelling, or throwing things around, because he backed out of the baby’s room in a hurry.  Garnet had started to cry, so I picked her up and followed him.

He was going down the stairs.  I was in the hallway, holding on to the banisters, looking at the fucking chandelier, when I realized he meant it, he would really leave me, and I called out, Peter, I love you. 

He yelled back, Fuck it, I don’t love you!

I held the baby up.  I thought I meant to shield myself from the words so they won’t hit me and break me, but the words must have hit anyway because something in me snapped.  After that I don’t remember.

I next remember looking down when I heard the sound.  It was a wet and horrible sound.  Peter was bending over something on the floor, he was screaming, and I started to go down to ask him if he had hurt himself when he got up and ran to me and slapped me and his eyes were wild and his hands were red.

That sound.  Like dropping a watermelon.  I wake up in the middle of the night hearing it.  I am talking to people and I suddenly hear it in my head and it hurts.

Peter said I held the baby up by one arm over the banister and the baby was giggling.  Peter said I was smiling, but how could that be, when my heart was broken?  He said he screamed at me to put Garnet down and I… he… I don’t remember.

Peter said he didn’t love me and that sounded so final.  He didn’t love me.

Please come, Camille.