Her face showed the full effects, and her neck I could not bear.

I must have let out a small yelp, because there was a moment where Father turned to me. He had the look of a painting made by a decadent and angry artist. He hadn’t cried, or at least I hadn’t heard him, but his eyes were red, and not the usual shade.

Mother was buried in the Ansul of Chapwyn Cemetery. We couldn’t get one of their priests to do the service, due to some stipulation about suicide. This sent Father into a wailing rage, which deepened the sense of weight and sadness that only the family of a suicide can tell.

Father was able to convince a martial priest from the SS to come out. Formerly delegated to sprinkling incense on brand-new war dead, he waved his hands and saw her into the dirt. Word had passed through the ranks, and it was the only time I got to see a dressed array of some of my father’s brothers-in-arms. I saw men whom I didn’t know console him in ways I’d wished then that I was able.

We rode back home, me behind him on the notch of a one-man saddle. I put my arms around his abdomen, a place that was once as hard as mountain stone, now turned to gut. I retracted them and decided to take my chances with a slipping grip of the saddle blanket.

—

The times immediately after Mother’s characteristic exit were filled with an even greater silence at home. Well, silence between the remnants of the family more like—taking into account the tarts with more legs than years left on earth who frequented the place. Abysmal void at the dinner table followed by broken glasses, head-tilt feminine laughter, and sex made for a house better fit for a madman.

It took Father no effort to find these women, and I surmised that at least one of them contributed to my mother’s suicide—maybe all of them. Years prior, I guess there would have been some hatred for my mother. Why couldn’t she have informed me of her discovery, and why couldn’t we have just left? But coin and shelter are not just given, and past the mere pragmatics, I also know how some are slaves to their own omissions, and I never pondered why there wasn’t a note.

To separate myself from the clamor that had become home, I delved deeper into my projects and fought with all my might not to acknowledge my budding interest in Father’s ill-gotten company. Many a time, a dissection was halted to ponder the contents under a silk black dress.