Not everything in life should be so bad, sometimes it is seasoned with pleasant surprises, situations that feed the soul (if the soul exists). My name Reymond Salas, I'm a lawyer, I have two young daughters, my wife left me and now live with it, I think it was because of the house. Because the house? Well, it's not like any home that they come to mind, this is life.
Sophia and I were married in the summer of 1998, was preceded by a courtship of six years, I met her on campus, she was more interested in criminology, and on fiscal matters, since I saw her I knew that our lives They would interlink, and I was right, up to this point.
We lived in a small apartment near the campus where we met, then we moved streets down to a large and cheap place was a bargain, a stroke of luck, see? I told you, not everything in life should be so bad.
It was after living together and find out that our relationship could survive under the same roof, they decided to get married, was a simple wedding, both with family and close friends; I'm not sure if that night conceive my firstborn, but I assure you that having children was a dream shared with my wife.
The running of the weeks, Sofia showed signs of pregnancy news deluded us too, and that was confirmed with tests showing the gestation of a baby in her womb, view this confirmation we went to the doctor to follow the process of pregnancy and care all aspects of the health of both my wife and the baby in formation.
Everything was perfect, with the news of pregnancy, lucky events happening one after another, her family and mine were shown euphoric, our friends were pleased with the good news, I got a job with fixed salary and highly paid job in a major firm lawyers, giving me financial comfort for a broader and baby Sophia, our own home place. Life is good surprises seasoned (Did not I tell you?).
Our baby continued his training, we were visiting the doctor to take care of all the details of your healthy evolution, Sofia and met five months pregnant, the baby could not see at all, unaware of its kind, sometimes thought she was a child, but the images broadcast by sonography were unclear; with concern the doctor told us the baby was losing weight, the risk was high, not only lost the baby, but my wife died due to complications of childbirth.
My wife entered the emergency room at the hospital one night when the sky was falling apart, she described in our home a sharp pain in his stomach, he thought that the baby broke the bowels, suffered a premature rupture of membranes pouring amniotic fluid surrounding the creature. Some ultrasound studies were performed in the following days when she was admitted, this suspicion of an abnormality in the product, it was not until the fifth day, in the ultrasound study we observed a facial malformation level their orbits, in the region of his nose and hands and feet.
My wife saved the baby too, but not quite, was born prematurely and with a complication, a genetic mutation resulting from the inheritance of two defective genes, which in medical terms called "autosomal recessive" Sofia and I behave both genes ... that fortune. This results in the product skin problems, makes it look to your skin with large scales, as if cracked, with a prominent red through the cracks, eyelids go flipped and fleshy, his lips are too puffy, giving it an appearance of grin, that of a harlequin precisely syndrome called "Harlequin Ichthyosis".
The baby was still struggling to live, seeing was the collapse of my dreams to the ideal of child that everyone wants to have, my wife was in a catatonic state, doctors tried to explain about this malformation, which could never assimilate after everything ended up killing the baby if a part of it.
The newborn died out within two weeks of respiratory complications, returned home when they were discharged to Sofia, which was almost the same lifetime of the child had been a boy, we worry about never think of a name.
Every night my wife woke up crying because of failed delivery, poor nightmares flooded his mind, the image of malformed baby tormented, filled her with horror. My wife required professional help to get out of miserable situation, and many visits to the therapist, he commented that dreamed this adult harlequin out from between her legs, watching her with an aqueous look, and with a smile drooling showed sharp teeth.
They spent more than a decade of baby Harlequin event, our marriage deteriorated, she left me a couple of times, constantly abused prescription drugs; but my love for her was very great, and did not think to see me defeated by any vicissitude, I married her for life, and many more grief than joy, the managed to retain was his makeshift doctor and husband, psychiatrist and marital, and within those little joy, those good times with us partner, Sophia became pregnant, was not joy so he seized us, was a horror that squeezed our hearts to this new front, with a history as we live we knew we were carriers of genes failed, what to do? What would you do?
The first night we heard the news, did the pregnancy test in hand, watched the hated, I thought of abortion as a first choice, if you know the conditions in Sofia was and already in advanced age would be dangerous to his life; the more I immersed myself in that thought came back to me the memory of the first baby, with the image of his skin resembling dry and cracked surfaces, the screams that escaped through her swollen lips and ready to explode in an eruption of viscous mass, but above all, his eyes hidden in the flesh of her bare eyelids, could not bear another experience like that, that's when the creaking of the walls of the house returned me from the depths of my thoughts, and a heavy funereal atmosphere was in the living room, and I heard there is a muffled cry, a cry that chills my skin, the noise comes from the double bedroom.
I went with clumsy and quick to the bedroom, to violently open the door, I saw my wife lying in bed steps, giving birth to a being with the same characteristics as the first, she looked subtracted from any feeling or thought, her white nightgown was dyed red, was pushing to get the baby crying with horrifying sounds, I was petrified and I want to cry, just opened my mouth without uttering voice to imitate a scream, baby noticed my presence, turned to me with his eyes wrapped in flesh of his eyelids, he moved his swollen mouth, but not heard what he said, though his lips repeating the word over and over again, I know I said: - "I returned."
Hallucinations, that's what I experienced in the whole process of pregnancy, Sofia came back to life and enthusiasm with this new pregnancy, expecting to healthy twins, no health risk whatsoever, here the only patient I am now, my mind I play traps, I feel that the house has its own life, I feel that the house is a large harlequin, I see the cracks walls that breathe, bleed when I look into the distance, their windows are those eyes baby died years ago, I live in my own nightmare, active within the harlequin.
The girls were born beautiful, quite contrary to my fears, have no physical complications, his skin is beautiful, filled my eyes milky and smooth the skin, that soft and smooth surface to cure my sick mind.
Every day this failed to late nineties, family regained strength that union and to establish itself as a true partnership, my hallucinations were diminishing, but not quite, even break the skin smelling blood. The girls cried a lot at night, felt they had seen something. I have not told the names of them, called Martha and Maribel, is the spitting image of her mother.
Two weeks at night ago I had to go see the girls in her room, Sophie was very tired and had not woken up to the notorious scandal of their young, had cried a lot, I became impatient, something was not right, I could intuit. The sound of my steps towards his room was a shocking squeak on the wood, at the door of the room hesitated to enter, had an incomprehensible fear, as if something dreadful to open the door to jump out of my humanity; I took the doorknob and slowly I turned, opened the inning with fear, hiding behind it, it's funny, but at the right moment they started to open the door the twins were silent. Silence gripped the atmosphere, the room was dark, the only light the lamp that illuminates the street came in through the window. I searched the damper groped for the light switch, my fingers shaking so much I could not make that simple action, and before he could turn the bulb, a dry, childlike voice broke the silence: - "I returned."
As you can imagine, the children no longer live with me, my wife left me (again), says my mental disorder is very serious, that my hallucinations do not stop, fears that he may harm them, look like me she pays, I who I cared, attended and waited for all these years, it is a little ungrateful. Now I live alone, I'm in this house that I bought long ago and ... let me correct, I'm not so alone, I live with my son, yes, that first son I had, he lives in this house, in the bowels of it, breathe , manifests itself, speaks to me, after all he did not leave, "returned" and has a name, it is called like me, and you know? He is all, indeed it is the whole damn family I need.