UNA
In the mornings Abel works in the fields, and at night Una moves like mist against him.
Their home is small and modest. In the back is a linen line, which Una spends much of her time tending. Even when there’s nothing more to be done he’ll find her there, lying under the sheets with her eyes closed while the shadows around her shift into evening.
Last year Abel paid a small dowry and received Una in return. She’s good to him, but restless. When she gazes at him, there’s something bitter wrapped up in the normal wife-like care, which puzzles him. Abel is a good man, or at least he wants to be, and doesn’t that count for something?
For her birthday he saves up and gets her a piglet from town.
“It’s little now, just a runt,” Abel informs her, as he carries the wriggling thing through the doorway. Una watches, eyes wide, fists clutching at the stiff fabric of her apron. Her curls are wild in the heat and she’s neglected to tie them up today.
“Boy or girl?”
“Does it matter?” He holds the hog against his hip with one hand and uses the other to pick up a bucket. “Good meat is good meat.”
Una stiffens.
“It matters.”
“Girl, then. Can’t you just say thank you?”
Abel knows he’s being somewhat unreasonable, but the walk was long and he had just wanted a grateful wet kiss in return.
“Thank you,” Una replies perfunctorily, and lets him pass out the backdoor.
For dinner they have stew. The piglet is loud outside, snuffling against the sides of the house and lapping up water loudly from her bucket. Mixed in with grace Abel prays that the weak spot in their fence will hold.
Late that night he wakes from a dead sleep, one hand pawing out for Una and finding nothing.
“I’ve named her Eve,” Una whispers, eyes shining in the light of his lantern when he finally locates her in the garden. The pig is in her lap, asleep, and its dirty side has stained Una’s nightgown. She looks a bit wild, really, shivering in the cold. When he finally convinces her to come back inside, though, she presses her lips to his with an urgency he's never seen. Abel lets the piglet fade into the back of his mind, more preoccupied with the liveliness of Una sliding under him.
Months pass. More often than not, now, he finds her trailing Eve in the garden. If he squints, it looks like a mother chasing a wobbly toddler, which reminds him that Una is still not pregnant, even after another winter. They’ve done everything right; Abel feeds her the right foods and prays over her stomach before he fills her. She’s even more of an active participant lately, which he feels like has got to help somehow. Before, she used to lie under him like a limp rag, eyes closed and body poseable. Now, though, she is encouraging, smiling up at him. Afterwards, however, she rushes off outside, and Abel washes up alone.
“Eve’s getting plump, huh?” He comments one evening after dinner, looking out the window as the pig waddles between the clothing lines. Una glances up from where she’s washing dishes and smiles.
“Indeed.”
“You sure think she’s swell, don’tcha?”
“Well, she’s only my whole world.”
This sentiment makes Abel uncomfortable, but he decides to drop it. There are more important things to do, like making sure the fields are ready for the swiftly approaching spring. Besides, with Eve around, Una finds herself in fits of joy where she clutches at Abel and murmurs how thankful for him she is. Abel always just holds her close, dazed by his own luck.
“Looks like rain’s coming,” he tells her, to change the subject.
“I love rain.”
Abel wrinkles his nose. If it weren’t for rain’s beneficial nature to his crops, he’d include in his daily prayer a plea for sun all year round. The clouds make him feel trapped, soggy with sadness. The conversation ends there.
By the end of March, Una hasn’t bled recently. She doesn’t mention it, but the usual stained linens vanish from the line, and Abel isn’t a complete idiot. The local village doctor is called in to examine her, while Abel paces outside impatiently. There is a drizzle that wets his face as he waits, and when the doctor comes back outside he has to rub his eyes a few times to see him properly.
“Well?”
“Congratulations,” the doctor says, clapping him on the back.
Inside, Una is still on the bed. When Abel approaches her it’s clear she’s been crying. Her hair frames her face like a lion’s mane and her skirt is haphazard from the examination.
“A baby,” Abel says with wonder, pressing the palm of his hand to where her womb must be. Una startles, looking up at him with a frown, and turns away from him.
In the weeks that follow her stomach begins to swell and her mood declines further. Abel picks her flowers from the fields and brings home fresh vegetables for the evening soup, but nothing seems to comfort her except Eve’s grunts and snorts. The sensual girl from a few months prior is gone.
“You should go to the village today, for a bigger dress. I’ll give you money,” he tells her over breakfast one morning. Una is scooping her porridge into her mouth with little enthusiasm, and she glances down at her dress which is starting to be stretched.
“My dress is fine.”
“It’ll be ripped by the time of the birth. Take the money, Una.”
“...Fine.”
With a wicker basket and a few goodbye kisses to Eve, Una sets off. Her sunhat is crooked, which makes Abel embarrassed, and he hopes she rights it before speaking to anyone.
As the sun moves overhead Abel slaughters Eve. Her blood stains the cuffs of his shirt, but the process is easy and he has her roasting on a spit by the time Una is returning. He waits by the kitchen table, pleased with himself and unable to stop smiling. His wife will grow big with child and strong from the meat he has prepared for her.
Una comes through the door humming, and smiles hesitantly when she sees him.
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing, nothing. I’ll show you later. Let me see the dress.”
The fabric is navy and soft, and Una seems happy with it. He brushes her hair aside with one hand and kisses her temple. She lets him. “What’ve you got to show me?”
“Here.”
He leads the way out the backdoor, so by the time they’re reaching the spit it takes him a few seconds to realize Una has stopped walking. When he turns her face is horrified, mouth agape and body shaking. He rushes to her, one hand coming to press against her stomach.
“What is it? The babe? Is it okay?”
Una refuses to speak, instead sinking to her knees, eyes locked at where Eve’s body is roasting. Needless to say, they do not eat a roast pig dinner. Abel spends most of the evening locked outside while Una smashes things inside and screeches. There are a few bites missing from where he tested the meat, and he watches Una kiss the flesh and cry and cry and cry. Once night falls he pries a window open and crawls through. She has fallen asleep at the kitchen table.
By morning she is gone, along with the mostly intact body of Eve.
Abel’s fields are abandoned in favor of searching the nearby villages for any sight of her. The rain pours down with all of Una’s grief.
Abel sleeps through it all. His crops drown. Sometimes at night he sits up straight, awoken in a cold sweat, and he can almost see Una outside his window, Eve’s body held close in her arms like a mutilated neonate.
Audrey Jiggetts, 18, Massachusetts - USA ✯ TT: @audgejig
“Audrey is projecting today. Onto which character, she's unsure.”