I Am Not Ready To Leave

Anastasia

A shy knocking on the door echoed in the darkness of the night. I pulled my blanket around me and shifted to my other side in the bed. I covered my ears with my hands but I could still hear the knocking. It came through doors and empty rooms. Outside, the wind and the rain were banging against the windows. The old, wooden tall-case clock in the corner of the bedroom made a loud ticking sound as its hand moved. The portable radio kept playing some unfamiliar blues song, crackling with static. Over all these things, I still heard the knocking. I knew not to open the door as that was how I had driven Alex away. He would have taken me with him if I was ready but I was not. I could not leave our daughter in a house like this.

“Ana, my dear, please don't stay. This house is not good for you. I can help you to move forward. You cannot dwell in the past forever”, he had begged.

“I'm not ready to go.” That was all I could say. I was not ready, it was the truth.

The radio started playing static and then it sounded like a baby crying. I closed my eyes and cried with her. Behind the white curtains, outside the bedroom window I saw the silhouette of a child’s hand touching the glass. I got up and whispered alone in the room:

“Don't go yet. I want to let you in but I dare not.”

The crying stopped and the radio started playing music again. But the song came to an end and a male voice informed me:

“There you had the last song of tonight, now it is midnight and I must say goodbye to you. There will be continuous, soothing music from now on.”

At the precise moment, the tall-case clock’s hand reached midnight. A loud and deep noise filled the room. It felt too much in an otherwise quiet house. I was startled by it and felt now fully awake. I brushed my face with my tired hands. I had bitten all the nails short. They had white spots in them too, which meant that I probably had an zinc deficiency.

The next morning came like one before that. I sat in the empty house alone, waiting for the night. The light from the window touched my face and I pondered whether I should go out, but I did not dare. I knew she only came during nights but I feared that if I opened the door, she could nevertheless be there, crying on my doorstep.

It was autumn now, and soon it would be too cold in the house. Alex had threatened to demolish the house, and so he had cut the power and heating from me. He had taken all the furniture and so the house was deserted. The only things I had were my radio, my night light, the tall-case clock made out of birch, and my daughter, coming to see me every night. I was sure though, that Alex would come back to get me before winter. I knew that then I would have to be ready to leave. I could not bear the thought. How should someone be able to leave their home and their daughter behind?

Mia came to see me every night. She could not leave. And that was why I could not either. Mia was born dead. She was our first born. I had been devastated back then, almost two months ago now, and I could recall the feeling. I had not wanted to let go of the little angel in my arms, but the doctors made me and then they carried the girl away. However, two weeks later she came back to me. She was knocking on our door and I could hear her crying outside every night. I could not see Mia, but I saw a dark shadow under the apple tree. It paced back and forth, crying. I knew it was my daughter. Alex could not hear or see anything.

He believed me though, when I said it was Mia’s spirit that could not move on. She wanted her mother, she wanted to come home. Alex believed so too but there was something in his eyes that bothered me. Every time she knocked on our door, Alex forbade me from opening it.

“Ana, I think that Mia could move on if you did too. If we leave the house, she will have nothing to come back to. She is coming for you. You need to show her how to move on, it would be better for everyone. You should try to get over everything no matter how horrible it was.”

Alex was crying a lot. He lost weight and looked tired, restless. Every night, I cried and paced around in the house peeking through windows, and Alex seemed to get more and more anxious until he could not take it anymore. He told me he was leaving and that he would demolish the house. I could not believe it. He would leave our daughter and make me leave her too.

“She's not real, Ana. Our daughter was born dead. She's not walking outside during nights, no matter how much you would want that. She's just an echo, a lingering picture. She just does the same thing over and over like a broken record. It is not real.”

“How can you say that? I will let her in tonight!”

“Ana, I don't think she will come inside. You should not invite her.”

But I did not listen to him. The night came and the darkness surrounded us. I could hear knocking on the door and her crying through the radio. I kept the radio on all times, since I felt that Mia was able to communicate through it. I listened to her crackling voice.

“Don't be afraid, my darling”, I said.

I ran to the living room window from where I could see the doorstep. The swing in the yard was moving slowly in a still air. The branches of the apple tree were bent from the weight of the round and plump fruits. Under the tree was a shadow. It was so tiny and hardly reminded the shape of a human being. It started moving from the tree to the front door like it was hovering in the air. It went back and front as the crying in the radio did too. I could hear the knocking coming and going. I walked to the door and slowly opened it. I tried to step outside but something kept me from doing that. I saw how the shadow got scared and vanished in to the night.

“Don't go!” I yelled and tried to run after her but right then there was a terrible rumble. The furniture started moving by themselves and in the kitchen all the glasses and plates flew to the floor smashing into thousand little pieces. The static on the radio grew louder. I covered my head and yelled in disbelief. Alex emerged in front of me, looking into my eyes fiercely.

“ANA! Did you do this? Why?”

“I did not. Mia, she...”

“Stop already! I will leave before morning and I suggest you do the same. Please, Anastasia, leave.”

“I cannot. I cannot leave my daughter.”

“Ana, my dear. You are using her as an excuse.”

Alex

The new house was a lot smaller than the old one and it did not feel like home because I was alone. We had been married for over ten years and I did not know how to be alone anymore.

I sat on a couch in my flannel dressing gown. The first rays of sunshine shined through the blinds, it was morning. They seemed to blame me for not doing anything. The hot coffee on the table was steaming against the light. On the floor, there were a pair of blue woolen stockings, I had kicked off before I fell asleep. I was waiting to hear the morning birds but they had all moved to south. There was nothing to break the silence but the ticking of my new clock. It had a much nicer sound than our old tall-case clock, though.

We had been together for so long before it all. I had wanted a child. Anastasia had shared the feeling for sure, but I had been more pressing on it. And now I felt guilty about that as I had lost both my daughter and my wife. Anastasia had bled to death during childbirth. I might have been able to deal with the pain of the loss, but then Anastasia came back. She haunted our old house and would not leave. And our daughter was not able to move on either because of her. It had been a nightmare to live with someone who did not realize she was dead. She had done the same things every night, over and over like an old gramophone stuck at playing the same tune.

That was why I had to leave. And I decided to tear down the house too, so she would not have anything to return to. She would have to move on.

That was what I hoped, at least.