"The Dead: Death by Suicide"

When I arrived at the Morkin sisters’ annual party for the Epiphany of January 6th, I was greeted at the door by the lovely young Lilly who excitedly said “welcome Miss Ivors, you look far too beautiful not to have a date for this evening, I’ll take your coat and direct you upstairs to find Miss Kate and Julia!” I made my way upstairs to find the frantic and eager sisters concerned that their handsome nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife Gretta, weren’t going to be attending as they were anxiously awaiting their delayed arrival. As I comforted them by explaining that the cold weather may be making them run a little behind, I contemplated the benefits of his absence in my own mind. I found myself content with this idea as I am familiar with his condescending insolence and not fond of his work.

Shortly after that, Gabriel arrived at the door and immediately exclaimed that his wife was at fault for their tardiness, claiming that she had taken forever to get ready. It seemed to me that this redirected vindication may be a recurring action of his. This made me realize that I really should have found a date for this evenings affairs to distract me from Gabriel’s ignorance. I wonder why Gretta puts up with him anyway, she doesn’t seem happy, neither does he. Lily greeted him at the door to take his coat. He asked her how she was doing; expecting a short and empty reply, it was apparent that he was overwhelmed by her extensive response.

As she began to rant about her personal life and her undesirable experiences with men, she stated that “men only care about what they can get out of you."

Gabriel replied “That’s not true Lilly, you just have to find the right one.”

Just when I thought I saw a speck of sincerity, he quickly expressed his discomfort in the conversation by attempting to impede her tirade by forcing his gratuity on her for her services. Wow, what a shocker... I was wrong about the possibility that he may have a genuine side to him after all.

Later on, after Mary Jane, the sisters’ niece, finished playing the piano, I joined Gabriel for a dance. We have a lot in common, Gabriel and me. We are both young, attractive writers who came from similar backgrounds. However, in a political and philosophical sense, we are nothing alike.  He writes a literary column in a conservative protestant paper for The Daily Express, which is one of the reasons I despise him. As a fervent supporter of Irish culture, I found it appropriate to tease him about his work as we danced about at the party. I mocked him in a friendly manner and he responded flirtatiously trying to change the subject.

He said, “Even if I would have known you came over to condemn me for my work while dancing, I still would have wanted you to join me; for such a fierce woman, you’re quite the dancer.”

I replied “Well thank you Gabriel; for a West Briton, you’re not so bad yourself.”

A West Briton is a pejorative term for an Irish person who is perceived by other Irish people as being too anglophilic in matters of culture or politics. Gabriel quickly became uneasy and was dumbfounded by my remark.

He leaned in and pulled me close, pushing his lips up against my ear seductively, and said “listen Molly, you are very beautiful woman and an extremely talented writer. As a writer, you should understand that the limitations in my words are set by those of whom I write for. You should know better than to assume that the words I write represent me as a person and my personal beliefs. I respect your work, as you should mine.”

Trying to bite my tongue, I pulled back and continued to dance warmly with Gabriel. However, my aggravation with his attempt to dismiss my words grew as the song began winding down. Slowly releasing my tongue from the tight grip of my clenched teeth, I felt a sharp pain in my mouth and began to taste my own blood. I took the opportunity to exercise my sarcasm by inviting him along for a vacation to the Aran Isles during the summer. To my witting surprise, I was faced with rejection as he proposed that he had a “cycling trip” already planned.

I pulled him in, stood on my tiptoes, and put my lips up to his ear, just as he did mine, and said “You know, your wife expressed interest in moving there, you should really consider being a supportive husband and stop being such a selfish prick, at least for Gretta’s sake. Nonetheless,” I added, “it wouldn’t hurt to show an ounce of interest in your own country.”

 I could tell he grew very irritated by my comments and was not very receptive to my mockery.

He yelled out and exclaimed in dissent “I’m sick of my country!”

Nearly causing a scene at the dance floor, Gabriel stomped off and stormed out of the ballroom in anger.

Against my better judgment, I followed him into the kitchen to find him with a bottle of liquor tilted up into his mouth as he chugged it down. He set the bottle down gently, gasped to catch his breath and turned around to look at me.

“What, did you come back to embarrass me some more, huh? Was that not enough for you? Anything else you want to say, shall I call in the rest of the guests?” he said, raising his voice.

I found myself solemnly amused in his despair and blurted out “I understand that a lot of pathetic people take jobs and do things for money even if they may not agree with them, but this is different. What happened to self-pride and identity? Huh? What happened to acknowledging who you are and where you came from? What happened to…” and then he cut me off, raced across the room and grabbed me aggressively.

He wrapped his arms around my body and brought my face in close to his, “stop, it’s just a job and I don’t… I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

The tone in his voice traveled from a deep roar to a quiet and sensitive whisper as the mood in the room began to digress.

We stood there, gazing into each other’s eyes in a deafening silence. In that moment, it seemed as though time had stopped and we were both frozen in place. I couldn’t move or even begin to rationalize my thoughts, nor did I want to. Overcome with emotion and confusion, we slowly brought our faces closer together, closing our eyes and moving in for each other’s lips. When our lips finally touched, it was as if the silence was overcome with a multitude of loud bangs, and my mind filled with bright flashes in all different colors… it was like fireworks.

The fireworks didn’t stop there, this was just a prelude to the grand finale which took place upstairs after Gabriel had picked me up, wrapped my legs around his waist and carried me up to the guest room. Placing me on the bed, he stripped me of my clothes and kissed me passionately as things started getting intimate. One thing led to another and before we knew it, we heard someone knocking on the door. Panicking and shuffling around in the sheets, we tried to cover up what we were doing, but it was too late.

Lilly walked in, took one look at what was going on, dropped her drink and screamed at the top of her lungs. I jumped up, covering myself with Gabriel’s dress shirt and rushed over to Lilly trying to comfort her as he stumbled out of bed in his underwear to do the same. He came over and tried to assure the distraught and confused girl that it was not what it had looked like. Still crying over what she had just witnessed, she looked up and slapped him across the face.

“Not only are you a cheater, but you’re also a liar” said Lilly. “It’s true, men only care about what they can get out of you!”

He was taken back, touching his check in disbelief.

“Please!” he said, “You must not tell anyone about this, it was nothing more than an accident, Lilly, I swear!”

I thought to myself, wait a minute, this was an accident? You came on to me first!

I looked at him and said “she couldn’t be more right” and then slapped him across the face, just as Lilly did, except I made sure it was a lot harder.

I gathered up my clothes and hurried out of the house in disgust, making a discrete exit, as I tried to put what had just happened behind me.

One year later, I was surprised to receive yet another invitation to the Morkin sister’s party. To this day, I can’t help but wonder what happened after I left. Surely Lilly said something…anything, right? Wrong. I called Miss Kate that same day to RSVP and find out what I had missed after I left the party last year.

At first, she acted as if nothing happened, saying “The only thing you missed was a terrific dinner, a very humbling speech given by Gabriel, and an unfortunate turn of events after the party, but we shouldn’t talk about that over the phone.”

I nearly hung up the other line with the mere thought that Lilly kept her mouth shut all of this time.

I replied “Oh that sounds wonderful, so sorry to have missed it. I wasn’t feeling well and had to run. What was the turn of events, was everything alright?”

She went on to say it was nothing to be worried about and then proceeded to ask me if I had seen or said goodbye to Lilly that night.

Startled by her question, I said, in hesitation, “No, no I didn’t see her. Why, why do you ask?”

“Well,” she said, “that was the last time I saw her too. I hate to give you this news over the phone, Molly, but something happened to Lilly that night. We were expecting her to help out with the dishes after dinner but she never came down and was nowhere to be found. After all of the guests left we searched the entire house to find her. I’m sorry to have to tell you like this, Molly, but… we found her in the bathtub covered in blood with slits in both of her wrists.”

Kate began crying hysterically, as was I.

“She was holding a knife and a note, but the note was covered in blood so we couldn’t read it. I don’t understand why she would do that, just why?! I know she was having trouble with men, and she was acting strange that evening, but I don’t believe that would be the sole reason she would end her own life! She was too young!” she sobbed in fiery.

I started to feel sick to my stomach.

Speechless as I was, I replied “Oh my, I am so very sorry Kate. This must be so hard on you. Are you doing okay?”

“Yes, yes I am fine. I am trying to remind myself of the liberating words Gabriel spoke of that night…

‘People must not linger on the past and the dead, but live and rejoice in the present with the living.’

Keeping that in my mind has been a great help for me to move on.” as I could hear her sniffling and wiping the tears from her face.

All of a sudden, I felt very weak and lightheaded.

“Where is Gabriel now?” I asked.

“He moved.” She said. “He quit his job, dropped everything and moved to Aran Isles with Gretta. Right after he learned about the incident with Lilly actually.”

I stepped back in utter disbelief, dropping the phone from my hands, everything became hazy. I fell to the floor in a state of paralysis, I couldn't move. I looked up to see that everything was blurry and spinning around me. Going in and out of consciousness, time seemed to be in slow motion and everything became very still and silent. I could feel and hear my own heartbeat as my blood pulsated through my veins, throbbing in succession...

THUMP thump, THUMP thump, THUMP thump.

 I watched the distorted image of the phone as it dangled freely by its chord…

“Hello? Miss Ivors. Are you there? Hello?”