Cross Stitch: Part Two (special preview)

The pages of the diary are written as if Mrs. Atherton knows she is going to be found. She writes about things that should have been common knowledge to a household. It is almost as if she writes out of fear, to cover her tracks and keep something hidden, perhaps protected. In the few pages that Marni has given me, she reveals a world of torment upon herself, one that could appear to be in her head, but just as easily be a twisted web around her.

The first few pages, which had been sent with Marni’s original letter, were small sparse paragraphs detailing weather, small chores, and the sewing jobs she had worked on that day. The newer pages were near black with so much script, and it went further into detail about the woman’s pregnancy and fears over motherhood. Her excitement and unease about her husband poured out on the page and she wrenched with the idea of raising a child with a man who, she claimed, could not love.

She also writes that she is fully aware that Erique is having an affair with Mary Alice, something she tolerates, only for the fact she is soon to have a child. Her thoughts race across the page, describing moments where things seem well between her and her husband. Then it instantly goes into another moment of downward spiraling worry and regret in her marriage. 

“I was well aware of what I was marrying into when I accepted Erique’s proposal. I had heard the stories about him, but I had thought that our marriage would calm him down. I doted upon him during those initial first months, I was eager to begin a family, and I thought he was as well. As time went on, though, his affection for me, as well as his time in the house, seemed to dwindle. I never became pregnant, so I blamed that for the sudden turn in Erique’s adoration. I tried everything to turn his eye to me again, and while he spoiled me and said the right things, it was not enough. In my mind, I had come to the conclusion that I was not enough. 

“I buried myself in work. I made dresses and stitched until my eyes went cross, my fingers bled, and my shoulders ached. Erique hired someone to help me because, in his words, I was beginning to look like a suffering, old maid. This was how Mary Alice came into our home. She was a pretty thing, exactly to Erique’s tastes. But, to my surprise, she was also a hard worker, kind, and treated me like a sister. I fast became enamored with the young woman, and I considered her to be my friend.

“I knew, too, that she and Erique were going on behind my back. I could tell from her flustered expression, the way her hair was sometimes mussed, how her dresses were wrinkled at the hem as if risen to her waist. Erique was home much more as well, and I could tell from his smile how good he was feeling. His affection for me had returned as well, but I knew it was out of guilt that he touched me, made love to me, and acted as though he were a favorable husband.

“I let it slide. For some reason, none of this bothered me as it should. Back in the early days of our marriage, when I was young and determined to raise a loving and upstanding family, it filled me to the brim with rage. But now, older, wiser, and having given up the idea of family, I was satisfied with the companionship.”

Another page shifts suddenly, back into anger and betrayal as she realizes that Mary Alice is pregnant. It is not at the girl she spits her venom at, in fact, the mention of Mary Alice is far and few between. She is mainly vengeful towards Erique.

“I can forgive his lasciviousness. I can forgive him sticking it into whatever moves. I could look away from the women, even the men, but I cannot look away from the fruit of his sin. His seed has taken root and is growing inside my dear Mary Alice. Her belly swells by the day, filled with my husband’s sin and regret. She grows sick from him. This thing that he has made, he cannot hide. He tries to make excuses, tries to get rid of the girl, hide her from me.

“He knows what he has done. He cannot give me a family, so I could look away at his transgressions. But the ultimate insult to now see what he has done. To see this seed grow. He has offended me to my core. He has blighted my existence. His sin and greed shall be seen by the world! I will never forgive him, not ever.”

Another page seems joyful as she reveals she, too, is pregnant, but it is brief, and from there, I do not know what happens. All I know is that Erique goes missing, and I have been unable to uncover anything about poor Mary Alice.

I cannot help but feel sorry for Mrs. Atherton. As it stands, I too am having conflicting feelings about my pregnancy. Ever since I was little, I knew I never wanted children, but Ivan was so excited about becoming a father, I wanted to be able to give him that joy. I keep telling myself that, once the baby is here, I’ll understand like all the other mothers do. It is just there is a fear and resentment inside me that has been there since those days as a child when I found my father’s secret.

I sketched out the man I saw in the hallway for Ivan and Marni. While Ivan had not seen anything, he had heard the cries of the baby. Marni said she had heard nothing but a silence that made her question her sanity, but she had seen a man in the house during her few trips inside.

The man with scissors was tall and lean, but his posture was stooped and crooked so that his hands dragged along the floor. His hands were contorted so that his fingers were tied and twisted around the handles of scissors, his palms looked hammered flat. His mouth was tightly sewn shut, with signs of struggle to open his mouth with gashed or loose holes where the thread lay. He wore all black and his long hair covered most of his face.

“That’s him,” Marni whispers. “I saw him once when I first unlocked the doors. I would see him near doors in the house, but I thought for sure it was something else.”

Ivan grimaces down at my sketch. “What else could that possibly be?” 

“I was scared! I was trying to lie to myself.” Marni bites down on her lip as she looks towards the distance. “I was told that sin and satan were the most horrifying things in this world. I truly wanted to believe that.”

“I also saw a woman. The man was leaned over top of her and he had her cut open. I think it was the woman who wrote these pages, the wife. He took the baby from her.” I shuffle through the pages, having put them in order from the dates on the pages. “Where did you find these, Marni?”