Genetic Code

GENETIC CODE

Violet Crawford

The Crawford family, welcome to our shitshow. A shitshow where the main characters are stuck in a repeating nightmare over and over again for all eternity. A long time ago, someone defined fear as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat. We are told it is a temporary emotional state of being; and maybe for most people it is. Maybe we are not a normal family.

I had a relatively “good” dad. He really tried; showed up to every rec soccer game, every ballet recital. Every night he would come into my room and read me one of his favorite stories. 

There isn’t much to say on the topic of my mother. According to him, once upon a time, she did love him, all of him. But, life came and washed over the two of them. As he says, it wiped them both out and by the time they came to the surface, they were no longer the same people that they once were. One night, she just left. Maybe she drowned beneath the metaphoric wave or she just didn’t want us anymore. Either way, she never came back. 

 For a week after she left, the house was filled with a heavy silence neither of us dared to break. I had finally broken the silence exactly seven days after she didn’t come home. “Would you read to me tonight?” My voice shook from fear of angering the man who did not look up at me. But after a few seconds he lifted his eyes to meet mine and I remember so vividly the softest smile that had ever grazed his face. His eyes glossy from tears I never saw fall.

That night, I crawled under my pink butterfly covers and grabbed my favorite stuffed animal “Cookie.” Cookie was a tabby cat stuffed animal my grandmother got for me the day I was born. She was limp and lost most of her stuffing. But as a kid, I couldn’t sleep without her. 

I waited anxiously to hear what story my father had picked out for tonight. My thick brown hair was tucked into a braid, I had my glasses and my flowered nightgown. I was expecting a story to make us both feel a little lighter, but as I have learned: I was to expect the unexpected in regards to my dad. He crawled into bed with me and snuggled up. My mother had vanished a week ago and the tension in the house was tangible even to an 11-year-old. 

Even though I was far too old to be cuddling with my dad in a twin-sized bed I welcomed it. He looked up at me and said, “She’s gone for good ya know?”

He said it so casually, not in a way that that was cold or unemotional. But so matter of fact, like there was nothing we could do would bring her back.

“One day, someday, you will find someone who will promise to love everything you are. They accept every flaw and imperfection, every insecurity and shortcoming. They vow their life to those character deficits, swearing to love each one in every life. And for you gorgeous girl, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had many. But each lies.”

“I mean that not to scare you or deter you from the love of humanity, but at its core, when all is stripped away the soul and heart is too dark to be loved and to love truly in return.”

Such heavy words to my young ears. I would think back on this conversation quite often in the dead of night. 

I responded with the only thought I had in my mind, “But you love me? Don’t you? You aren’t leaving?”

“Well now V, you didn’t let me finish. No one will love you like your family. It’s you and me forever, you’re apart of me kid and I’m part of you, whether you like it or not.” 

There was nothing my 11 year old brain could think of to respond to that. I’m not sure why but the tears began to flow. At least for now, the screaming and loud noises late at night might finally come to an end.

He kissed me on the forehead and opened my favorite story and began… “It was a dark and soundless day near the end of the year, and clouds were hanging low in the heavens. All day I had been riding on horseback through country with little life or beauty; and in the early evening I came within view of the House of Usher…” 

  Each night after that we would spend our evenings diving our noses into the latest reading. For me it became school books, for my dad it became obscure horror novels. As I grew up, our obscure relationship started to make more sense. The man my dad was becoming was not a man that I knew. His personality began to fade, and who he was slowly started to dissipate. The father I thought I knew was disappearing with the years. The older I got, the farther away he became. There were some days he didn’t recognize me, which made me sad, but what made me even sadder, was the fact I didn’t recognize him. 

Some lessons cannot be taught; they are left only to be learned through experience: like learning when to walk away after you have loved someone so hard and so fully only to find out they are flawed beyond repair. So when it came time, I left. 

But here I am, almost 30 years old coming back to my twin-size bed, in my pink, childhood bedroom. Back in the very small town of Town Creek, Mississippi with a population of 1,039 people, most of which are long past their prime, and a few younger people who stuck around to take care of the people they love. 

My hair was darker than it was before with a few premature gray hairs coming out but still tucked into a braid that was much longer than it was before. I tried hard to cut the southern accent when I went to nursing school, but being in this town, driving past the farms and the cows, I can almost feel myself seeping back into tradition, back to the insecure little girl I was here. 

Yet I find myself here anyway, yet smarter, a certified nurse with a stable new job, though not changing the world through hip replacements and arthritis treatment. I am more experienced, wiser. I am ready this time. Educated on the symptoms and treatment. I will be helpful this time around. I can finally make a difference.

I arrive after a long 4 day trip across the country from Seattle, the weather is so much warmer here. My skin tingling as the rays of the bright midday sun seep into my vitamin D deficient body. 

I pull into the driveway. I can imagine a little girl who looks vaguely familiar running through the yard with Dart, the family lab. He barks as she climbs too high up the giant sycamore tree in the front yard. I see a woman that sounds exactly like my mother, calling to the girl in the tree; screaming of the dangers. The little girl screams, “watch me mom!”

I see the old ford truck before me pull into the driveway, my father screaming, “Where is my daughter huh? Andy you see her? All I see is a monkey!”

“Watch me dad!” The girl jumps off the lower branch and rolls onto the ground. As she summersaults she comes up with her arms in the air she yells, “Tadaa!” 

My father drops his suitcase as he runs to me, lifting the girl into the air, spinning in circles. “My daughter. Andy? You believe it! My daughter, a famous acrobat!”

She giggles and leans her head back as my father carries her behind the deep emerald door that had been chipped and scratched up by the years. 

That door that stands before me. Do I knock? Do I walk in? So much has changed, yet it looks the exact same. It doesn’t matter I hear Dart barking and instinct kicks in. I open the creaky door to see the graying lab jumping with excitement. I immediately drop to the floor to let him tackle me, a girl knows her dog. 

I hear the familiar voice, “My sweet Violet.” I look up at my father. The years have been tough on his body. He looks feeble and weak, his arms and legs much skinnier than they were when I left. I get up for a hug, my hands reach all the way around his waist. I try to hide the concern in my voice, “Dad! How are you?” 

“Oh, how I have missed you V! Let me get a good ole look at my baby girl. It's been too long since I last seen ya.” He spins me around as he holds my hand above my head.

“How have you been, really?” I try to hide the pity in my voice.

“Oh same ole same ole, not much change ‘round here, you know that,” he says in a voice that for a long time I only heard in my dreams. I could be swept up in the emotions and tired from the long drive, but I am happy to be home. 

“Where is Sandy?” I say looking around. Sandy was the nurse I did a lot of research to find. We even moved her here from somewhere north. She had a lot of experience with schizophrenia patients in psych wards and worked in-home with dementia patients. She is a strong, built little woman. Even if my father was at full strength, I might have to place my bet on Miss Sandy. 

“I sent her off to Virginia to be with her son, she has been moping around here missing him dearly. But don’t even start with me,” He saw me starting to protest. “I have been doing really well the past few weeks. I make it to the farmer’s market every mornin’ and I’ve never been lost on the way home.”

“Well let’s not push our luck, you know we don’t have much.” I joked with him. 

“I have a surprise for you, grab your bags and meet me upstairs. Your bedroom, I want to show you it.”

As I grabbed my bags all I could think about was the last “surprise” he had for me. Before dart was around the house was unbearably silent, there was no joy that was not sucked into a pit of silence. In 7th grade, I asked my father for a dog. Thrilled with himself and excited with his surprise, he came home with this exotic fish from the pet store. That same night, Clifford, the exotic fish, jumped out of the bowl and committed suicide. A tough sight for a 7th grader, but together we threw him in the pond out back and went to pick out our perfect puppy, Dart the rocket of a golden labrador. We chased each other through the yard for days after we first got him.

I drag my various sized luggage up the stairs, passing the bathroom we used to share in my childhood. I come to the room that used to be mine. I drop the bags. I am in awe.

I look around, the room is a deep burgundy velvet room with gray walls. The pink butterfly sheets have been replaced with a very comfortable looking duvet. The twin bed, now a queen. The deep wood furniture enhanced the cozy feeling of the room, the bed frame, desk, and bookshelf; they were exquisite.

The sight is from a Better Home and Garden’s magazine. “Dad…” the word falls off my lips. There is no possible way he did this alone. It was all too much.  

“Don’t mention it, I had a friend help me out. You can’t get a good night’s sleep in a tiny twin sized bed anyway.” 

I walk to the bookshelf that is practically glowing from the light shining through the maroon curtains. It is filled with the books of my childhood. I turn to him, “You can’t have an empty bookshelf, makes ya look like an idiot.”

I touch the wood of the bookshelf, it is strong, but has been carefully engraved. Images: flowers and vines stretching up the sides, flames and intricate detail on each shelf. “Where could you have possibly found something like that?” I look at the other pieces, matching perfectly. “All of them, they are exquisite.”

“I have a lot of free time,” he shrugs.

“It’s amazin’ truly. I love it.” I cross the room to hug him.

We are standing in the doorway looking at this brand new room. It feels as though I am standing in a familiar dream, and all of a sudden the location drastically changes and I no longer know where I am. Maybe that’s a good thing.

“Do you have dinner plans?” 

I snort, “I just got here, no I do not have dinner plans.”

“Go out or stay in?” 

“I’m exhausted, let’s just stay in.”

He looks at me shamefully, “Well, see, Sandy didn’t have a chance to make it to town. So we are going to need a few things.”

Edgar Crawford

I watch her leave this room. She practically skips down the stairs, reminding me of what a home is supposed to sound like. She yells goodbye up the stairs and once again I am alone. 

My chance of redemption shuts the front door behind her, shaking the foundation a little. I look around and slowly enter the room, it really did feel like a brand new room. I did it for her of course, but the saltiness of selfishness dries my mouth. 

One day, when I come face to face with my judge, I am sure this will be added to my long list of sins but the room that once stood before me, the one that haunts my dreams, was a black hole. It plagued the atmosphere with a sharp pain that no one could ignore. A black hole that had spent years sucking me in, lost in the unheard stories of time. That room. Always a Crawford child’s bedroom, mine before her’s, my mother’s before mine, my great grandmother’s before her’s. Only after death do you graduate to sleep with the ghost of the master bedroom. 

I was once strong, independent, and a hard-working farmer. I provided for my family, I loved them to the best of my ability. Though it was never quite enough, I had a handle on my life. 

But that was not who I was destined to be. I was not meant to have the perfect happy family, fate makes me question if it’s my fault for even trying. 

This, who I was inevitably born to be, drove away my family: my mother, my wife, and my daughter; a harsh way to learn the inevitable lesson that everyone always leaves. Living in a constant state of fear and of depression, in part, has torn away at the man I should be.  I’ve always found pride in the fact I built myself up to be a real man, a leader, provider, teacher, protector; not some hippy dippy douchebags of California or Florida. To be that kind of real man takes a whole lot of shit work. 

But to understand my story, and what will in turn become our story, I ask not for pity but of understanding. To have worked so hard, to have grappled with the weight of right and wrong, good and evil, then after learning the lessons of life, and still choosing wrong.

There will always be two sides to every story, each perceiving events through the lens of our minds. I will spend eternity paying for my part in others’ reality, I will beg on my knees for forgiveness for as long as my soul is in one piece, but there was a time I was whole; when reality made sense to me.

Andy called it pride, foolishness and my own self pity, but since the official diagnosis, I refuse to travel anywhere to be poked and prodded. I want to remember who I am, I want to remember my daughter. I want to be her father for as long as I have left. 

When they first put me on the original treatment plan, Violet was about 10 years old. I did the treatment, I really tried. Andy too, but it changed everything. Stimulated more and more blackouts, moments I refuse to recall. Almost a year of my life unaccounted for. 

But right here right now I stand in a brand new room with new memories to be made; where the past can finally be forgotten. As I wander the room I end up at the bookshelf. I thought it interesting, this was the first thing she came to. She looked so much like Andy, the long brown braid down her back, pieces falling forward in her face. Hiding her natural beauty more than she should. She was never very tall, but attitude always gave her a few inches. She had her big brown eyes that reminded me of a sweet doe, so kind and beautiful I don’t deserve to look at them.

I run my hand over the spin of the books, it shakes more than I would like it too. I take a deep breath focusing my eyes on the letters that sprawl across the spine. Each individual short story, novels, collections, stories of history, names like: Dickenson, Hoffman, Quincey, Shakespeare, Dahl, but I stop on the red copy of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. A gift from my mother, the most worn of all the books on the shelf, scribbled notes in handwriting that isn’t mine. Violet always loved this one the best. 

I turn to the new queen bed, I smile fondly on the memory of the torn up butterfly sheets she held on to far too long. Violet would crawl into bed and most nights she would have one awaiting me, marked by a homemade bookmark she designed herself in her shaky cursive it read, “We loved with a love that was more than a love.” with hearts around the pink paper. 

The days when it was only us, we would take wild adventures, anywhere we wanted. Together we left this world behind and explored the world of that bookshelf. We lay uncomfortably under those purple sheets squished together on the bed, but neither of us cared. She listened with her eyes closed, imagining the worlds my words built for her. 

Often the stories and adventures were cruel and mysterious. The pictures I painted for her she admired, just as I. She wanted to hear the stories that make your heart race a little faster when the lightswitch is flipped and the door creaks closed. 

Some children love a scary ghost story around a campfire excited by what lies in the dark while others scream in pure terror when forced to watch a horror movie at a birthday party.. But for others, it grabs ahold of their soul and never lets go. The symbol for purity and innocence, all they have ever known is joy and hope. 

The emptiness and coldness of fear is the first shell shock of life. 

The infamous companion of fear is the absence of any fight or flight instincts. Instead she befriends time and pleads it to still.

Nothingness.

No reaction. No response would suffice. An animal aware of its fate.

That one singular moment before coming to terms with the gods, when hope disappears from this life all together. 

The only movement comes from the stomach tying itself into knots; the pores pushing a bead of sweat to the top of the skin; the racing heart begging blood and adrenaline to find the brain. 

Some go looking for that absence of light, and hope, and all the goodness. For that line between life and death, letting the unknown reveal itself little by little. 

The sheer golden curtains flutter in the wind and I hear the neighbors dog barking at Dart and V. Tommy our neighbor was a grump of a veteran so we left him to his own devices, but that damn chihuahua was a fucking nightmare. Gotten off his collar twice and attacked Dart. Poor guy has always been more of a lover than a fighter. 

From the window I can see the little shit free himself and go straight for my little girl in her adorable superman cape. 

Whether it was Andy or Violet, the scream that follows stabs my heart, and then my gut, then my lungs repeatedly until I cannot breathe. I grip my abdomen to ease some of the pain, but I am forced to watch it unfold. I see a younger version of myself sprinting through the side door. He rips the dog away from the girl. The girl rushes to her mother. 

Screams, cries, barking, they all fill the air as I watch the stronger, angrier me save the girl and then execute the fucker in front of their eyes. 

His first rapidly firing at the teeth that dare scratch at his flesh. The other hand grabs the throat that tasted his blood. 

Gripping the window sill, I try to keep my balance; I look at Andy's face, an expression I knew all too well. My bloody hands slip, I see the bite marks on Violet’s legs and tears on her face. But the last thing I saw before I lose my grip completely was that look of fear, but her eyes were no longer directed at the fucking chiuhaha.