Neva's mind is half-muddled with nihility as her hand glides across the canvas, a wash brush dipped in green paint bringing to life an impressionistic garden.
A frosty February wind seeps through the open windows of her art studio, stirring the enormous room filled with canvases, paints,
and brushes, alongside a few half-finished paintings she can no longer bring herself to touch.
Except for this impressionist painting, which she began about three weeks after the twins were born.
She had nursed the babies and put them to sleep a while ago, before finding her steps tracing back to the art studio instead of to bed,
seeking solace in letting her hands reimagine what they had retained from a past her mind could not.
As she contemplates whether to close the windows, the cold seeping through the artful agapes of her cream-coloured vintage knitted dress, a cramp slices through the healing wound across her abdomen.
Her eyes close as she draws a deep breath through her nose, waiting for the pain to ease away.
Her twin babies, a boy and a girl named Isaiah and Inaya by their father, had been born a bit prematurely, and she had to undergo an emergency C-section.
Fortunately, both babies were healthy, and she knew their father would give the world to ensure their happiness, for from the very first glimpse of his newborn children, he had been the most tender.
She places the brush in the ceramic water cup, the water already thickened to a dark green despite having replaced it with clean one only moments ago.
Something is truly amiss, unfinished in this almost ethereal garden painting, where a kaleidoscope of light and darkness plays in a gracefully captivating manner, as though a fragment of nostalgia, so profoundly important, remains yet to be fleshed out.
Her finger traces the fringe of the canvas, where the colours have already dried, the hollowness deepening within her with the obscurity of never knowing what has long gone astray.
Astray, not lost, for a new flicker of hope has been kindled within her through learning about her Creator.
She finds comfort in reading the Bible, a grounding truth that restores her to life, even if her visits to the library have been minutely narrowed since the twins were born. Those secret, stolen moments with the Bible are what truly carry her these days, even if her husband does not approve of her reading it.
She had asked him about it the very first night he returned from working late in his study and found the lights still on in their room, with her lying awake on the bed, the Bible in her hands, riveted by its pages.
He had said that God only abandons, mocks, and condemns, and that mortals are merely puppets for Him to toy with.
She strongly disagreed, and he said nothing more, except to warn her never to read it again.
For a few days, she obeyed, but soon found herself wandering through the library, unable to pick up anything to read until, eventually,
she gathered the courage to reach for the Bible.
Amber light filters through the forest amidst the melting ivory snow,
and a warmth surges within her before she realises that she needs to check on the twin babies.
She startles as the door bursts open, followed by the fast, familiar footsteps thudding across the floor.
She glances over her shoulder to find Ishmael, his expression hardened into a severe, barely restrained mask, rousing within her a sinking feeling.
Her muscles tense as he tears the canvas from the easel and hurls it out the open window in a blur of colour and motion, before a tight grip clamps around her elbow, abruptly wrenching her to her feet.
"I dare you to come back here again." His warm breath fans across her face as his grip tightens around her, sending a crushing ache through her arm.
She feels removed from her body as he drags her towards the door, along the mezzanine overlooking the grand living hall, the paintings, ornate balustrade, marble walls,
and gleaming chandelier closing in around
her in a dizzying blur of colour, before the shrill cries of babies suddenly pierce through the haze.
Servants rock the babies, swaddled in tiny blankets, attempting to soothe their cries with soft coos, until they sense their presence and turn towards them.
"Get out," Ishmael orders, drawing Neva towards the two cribs arranged side by side, their white canopies of curtains flowing around them.
The servants quietly place the babies in the crib before bowing and slipping out of the nursery room.
He releases her elbow. "Pick him up," he says.
She reaches for Isaiah, her heart pounding against the ache in her arm as she lifts the crying baby with trembling hands.
Neva can't feel her arms and can't stop their shaking, when her heart stutters as Isaiah slips from her hold.
Ishmael moves in at once, catching the baby beneath his back with one hand before steadying her grip by pressing him gently against her chest.
She lifts her gaze to meet his, only to recoil violently as he raises his hand to strike her.
Her heart pounds in her ears, mingling with the piercing cries of the baby, her whole body tensing in anticipation of the impact. But it never comes.
"You have one job," Ishmael says, his voice low and hard. "One—to look after them.
How hard is it to simply be there for them?"
Neva remains silent, her eyes burning as she fights back the tears threatening to spill.
"If I could hear them all the way from my office, how important could your stupid hobbies possibly be?" His phone buzzes,
and he reaches into his trouser pocket.
"Get him to calm down," he says, and with one last glance at her, walks away.
She attempts to soothe the baby by rocking him gently, his little face flushed and crumpled from crying, while Inaya has already calmed down.
How long had they been crying, and why had the maids not informed her?
"Shh..." she whispers. "It's alright—" Her voice cracks as tears finally stream down her cheeks.
In vain, she tries to calm the baby before her legs weaken, forcing her to lower herself onto the single couch.
That's when a thought crosses her mind: if she cannot be a good wife or a good mother, perhaps she should simply leave.
But where would she even go?
The very people who seek his downfall knew her enough to cause her accident, and even he can barely leave the house, let alone allow her to.
Regardless of how she wishes her life could have been, here, with him, is the safest she could ever be.
When Ishmael returns, the baby has already calmed after she breastfed him, sleeping soundly in
her arms as she listens to his soft, even breaths.
Her legs go numb again as he approaches, her hold tightening around Isaiah ever so slightly as his gaze shifts towards Inaya, sleeping peacefully in the crib.
He lets out a sigh, and she fixes her gaze on the beige fur of the carpet, wondering if every marriage is like theirs, if it is normal to constantly be on edge and uneasy, and if she is simply supposed to endure it.
But for how long? Until it becomes too much?
"I know this isn't easy," he says, glancing at her. "But you're a mother now.
Try, at least, to come out of that shell for them."
She remains quiet, her throat tightening as she struggles to hold back her tears.
"Give him to me." He closes the distance between them,
and she helps him take the baby from her arms.
The baby stirs slightly in his sleep before settling in his father's arms.
A small smile touches Ishmael's lips as he takes a moment with his son in his arms, while Neva wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her knitted dress.
"Fix yourself up," he says, gently lowering the baby into the crib.
"The butler has prepared refreshments in the sitting room. A maid will watch over them until you return."
She stares at the dried acrylic paint on her hands before noticing the undone button near the neckline of her knitted dress, which she had missed.
After she buttons it up, he offers her his hand.
She quietly takes it, and he gives her hand a gentle squeeze as she rises to her feet.
"There are better days waiting ahead of us, love." He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Our children, they are our hope for a new beginning."
He presses a kiss to her forehead. "You know I love you, right? I've given everything to get us here. Don't ruin it for me."
But love alone isn't enough, and she knows that.
And his kind of love goes against everything the Bible has taught her.
She wonders, then, what love even is without faith.
"Come with me." He takes her hand and pulls her towards the door,
while the ache in her arm only worsens.
She is unaware of how long she can keep pretending that the cold void within her isn't slowly consuming her, and can only pray that this breathless helplessness does not drown her deeper into the abyss until she completely loses herself.