Guilt makes people do strange things. For her own mother it made her abandon her responsibilities and seek comfort in places comfort did not live. Her mother wasn’t the kind of mother that invested more energy and love into her children in order to divert their eyes from worldly possessions she, herself, could not provide for them. And perhaps that is how Kym turned the way she did, in an effort to avoid the path, she, in her opinion, should be condemned; the path her mother had chosen.
She did everything right, or so she thought, she kept her grades clean, saved every dime that fell through her teenaged fingertips and at 17, was college-bound, slaving her way through it, vowing to never return to that haunted house again; as a daughter or a guest.
Near the end of her last year of college, something unexpected happened. Happiness came, in the form of a man with whom she fell madly in love with, they were married shortly after and not too long after that she had their son; and handsome was he, just like his father.
But in like every fairytale, sadness came, in the form of something she would have never predicted. Happiness was dead, and all that took his place was a note, five little words left behind that continue to haunt her to her core. It’s funny how five little words can destroy every last piece of you.
And maybe this is where it all went wrong. During the funeral, through all of the pain and grief she found Doug, an old friend of her husband’s. She could remember the two of them swapping stories, smiling over what could’ve been and laughing over what was. And she began to feel something for this life again and her son was so small she couldn’t bear to see him grow up without a father, that when Doug asked her to marry him, she said yes.
And it seemed as though she could finally have her happily ever after. They settled into a small town, on a quiet street, in a big beautiful green house. But then slowly things began to change. They had mutually agreed that her son would not know of his real father. An idea of Doug’s reasoning, that to her, at the time, seemed to make perfect sense. What kind of son would want to grow up knowing their father abandoned him? Didn’t think about him in that very moment? Not her son, she thought. Especially now that he could have a father and the family she always envisioned for herself; the family she was not granted the privilege of ever having.
Although, her small son wouldn’t know of the fate of his father, she, herself, was very much aware of her first husband, loved him and wasn’t ready to be rid him just yet. So when the pictures she kept of him, in a shoe box, in the back of her closet, disappeared. The stories of a life so treasured and adored by two strangers, stories of a life that brought those two strangers together, stopped being shared. Clothing, things he bought for their house together, things he bought her, things he had bought their son, all vanished. And all that took its place was more alcohol, shorter tempers and eventually the welts and bruises, she and her plotted an end to this chapter.
She tried everything to shield her son away from Doug. But kids get older, and it doesn’t get easier. And he did get older, and he started to favor his real father and guilt among many other things, Kym couldn’t even begin to understand, enraged her new husband. Guilt makes people do strange things, that, and five little words. She thought to herself, sitting at the kitchen table, holding a conversation with her, a conversation she had no idea what about.
She had spent the last six years making it up to her young son, now almost a man. She had adorned the tightest and shortest red dress she could find for Doug’s funeral; sadness wasn’t what she felt, but a celebration instead. A celebration of her son and a promise to be better; a promise to her she kept. She even swore off all relationships and any semblance of a personal life, a sacrifice she felt was long overdue, and became the kind of mother who vested more love and more time into her son so he would be one of those kids those other children envied.
She hoped the newer years of humor and laughter, the educational trips and movie nights, the big birthdays and Christmas’ would overshadow those older ones of pain. She wondered if her son could see her for the last six years and not the first ten. Could she live with the lies she has told in order to protect him from a path she thought would have been worse off? And would he trust that the other path would’ve done more harm than good? And if not, could he live with the truth? Like dominoes, the questions come tumbling down, no answers, just more questions. In this woman’s bright yellow kitchen, holding a conversation she still knew nothing about. Hoping that these voices in her head; five little words, tell my son I’m sorry, sins of a past Christmas, please do not kill me, would finally forgive her and leave her be, in peace.
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Persephone would listen to Prudence intently as she retold the story of the Land. When other girls were listening to stories of older girls with glass slippers, long hair, or poisonous apples, Persephone was listening to a story of destiny; and a magnificent story it was. Prudence would tell her the story was true and that one day she, her own special daughter, would be the main character.
After Prudence would finish, Persephone would always say, “but Momma, what happens next? You never finish the story.”
“That’s because it is your story and it hasn’t begun yet,” her mother would lie, “all I can share with you is how your destiny came to be.”
For years Persephone carried with her the idea that she would become someone great, although she never felt the longing inside of her. But then she got older and when the time that Legend says the story will begin for this girl passed, relieved was the most accurate word she could think to describe it. She had no desire to be that girl.
When the detail came out, during the last time she and Prudence last spoke, a detail Prudence would always omit from Legend, a detail that forever altered her life, Persephone vowed that the baby growing inside her would not be that girl either.
When Persephone first found out she was with child, after she cursed her very existence, she promised she would never do to her baby what her mother did to her; fill her head with fantasy and false hope. She spent the next sixteen years, shielding her daughter from a fate she was determined for her not to have.
First, there was to be no contact with Prudence, and the best way to do that was to tell her child that her grandmother was dead; a story not too far from the truth. To Persephone, Prudence died to her a long time ago.
Second, she chose a name for her that went against Legend as well as bloodline. Looking back through her lineage, the women in her family, all women, bore a first name that began with a “P.” There was Persephone and her mother Prudence and her mother Penelope and her mother Penny and so forth and so on. For generations, the women were told the Legend of the Land and the girl whose name is not known at all, save for the first initial, “P,” who risks everything, truly everything, to right the wrongs of her family before her and become a hero in time. Her daughter will not be that girl, Persephone would say.
Third, Council was to never find out about her baby’s existence. According to a Legend Persephone had not heard in over a decade, Council was established to monitor all things relating to their kind and so for the first four years of her daughter’s life she went to great lengths to stay hidden. They traveled through various states and even countries until one day settling in a small but quaint, newly established town not even on most maps yet. Persephone knew it was normalcy she was chasing. She wanted her daughter to be able to grow up, get married, and for Heaven’s sake have sons and live a normal life but she knew her daughter wasn’t going to be able to possess the normalcy she sought if she didn’t realize she wasn’t actually running towards it but from it; so she resided there, permanently.
Persephone glanced at the clock behind Kym for the eighth time in 46 seconds. It’s not that Tyler’s mom wasn’t an interesting conversationalist; she was just worried about Fiefer was all.
15:285. Year 15, day 285 was the day it was prophesized to begin, in the story her mother told so long ago. Persephone hadn’t been this nervous since her own 15th year and 247th day, as she waited, quite impatiently at that, to find out if she would be the one. Although she knew deep down that she wouldn’t be, Persephone knew from the moment her Fiefer formed quietly in her belly, that she would be the one, she would be called upon, her baby girl would be tested; just to spite her.
Persephone stared down the third hand of the celestial clock, before refocusing on Kym’s pale lips. She returned back to the sun-shaped ticker, befitting she thought at the time, against the sunny yellow walls of her kitchen, before reattaching to Kym once again. Once more, she soaked up the 12 triangular rays that surrounded the face of the ball, each ray representing 5 minutes. She waited for the second hand to pass its 14th triangle since she had been sitting there, before stopping this relay and settling in on Kym; until she heard it.
“Mom?” That familiar voice called out.
“In the kitchen with Kym.” Persephone returned and waited until she entered the room to finish, “it’s 5:45pm. Where have you been Fiefer? I thought your schedule frees you at 2:30pm now?”
“Well, I had to talk to my teacher after class...” Fiefer began, while Persephone tried her hardest not to show the worry that consumed her, especially since her daughter was about to feed her lies. She hated these moments, being victimized and not being able to confront the guilty.
Persephone always knew when something strange and foreign about her daughter’s gift had happened to her, and today was most certainly one of those days. She thought it would get easier, this deception. When Fiefer was younger she would jump into her bed and tell her in such great detail about all of the magical things that happened to her that day and Persephone would navigate her fragile mind away from it all, from asking her next question, and then this one and that one, until Fiefer no longer told her anything about magic anymore.
But Fiefer was older now and Persephone couldn’t help but think her mind was the one being navigated away, from this truth and that one. It was her daughter’s one tell, these lies and not the quality of them either but her lack of remorse. Persephone hated the fact that Fiefer was so good at it; she learned from the best she guessed, but was thankful in the fact that she could still spot them at least. She would give anything to talk to Fiefer about her changing body, bullying and boys yet instead of the letter “B” she found the letter “D” was the initial she spent most days trying to dodge. Dreams. Danger. Death. Not her child, she thought, anyone but Fiefer.
“…thus the reason why Tyler and I are going to the mall.” Fiefer finished, concluding her lie riddled ramblings; for the time being.
Persephone and Kym stared at their babies, all grown up before their eyes, each in their own misfortunate but completely dissimilar ways before surrendering to their demands. Kym relinquished the keys and stared at her young son, now almost a man, while Persephone peered through Fiefer before she walked away, hoping to appeal to a small piece of her she wasn’t really sure still existed; the little girl in her, the one whose mind was so easily manageable; and then they were gone.
There they sat alone again, Persephone and Kym, in her sunny yellow kitchen with their stormy thoughts, two feet away in distance but a million miles apart in mind; on opposite ends of the spectrum yet sharing a common place of thought. They are mothers, both sending their teenagers off to battle, armed with only what they think they should know, hoping it’s enough armor to get them home safely, and happy, and without disappointment or worry, hoping that they remain as pure and as untarnished as they had when they left. And if so, hoping they can stay that way for a little while longer; before the cruel, cruel world sucks them into its rotation of misery, stealing their innocence with every revolution, with every tick of the celestial clock.
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She tried to be the best mother she could be, but her daughter didn’t quite understand what it took to believe in something, to have faith in something that could not be scientifically proven. And for this, it is the reason she took the measures she did, in order to make certain that proof could and would come to light.
For years, she tried to convince her daughter of her gift, that’s because it is your story and it hasn’t begun yet, telling her the Legend over and over, all I can share with you is how your destiny came to be, hoping it would incite something in her. But Prudence knew it wasn’t going to be her daughter’s journey, her daughter was too weak, and because of this weakness, she omitted one crucial detail from the story, a detail that forever altered her daughter’s life, and consequently, her granddaughter’s as well; her single regret.
Prudence had long since given up on the dream that she, herself, would be the one. But when she found out she was carrying Persephone, she showed a renewed interest; a second chance. Destiny cannot be denied she used to say, stroking her belly, humming an old tune as her unborn baby stirred anxiously inside her, praying one day her bones would feel the ache like hers had so long ago.
There is something that occurs when you know you have it. She is so powerful, that destiny, that she can take you to the tops of the Heavens when she comes for you and she won’t be ignored. An ache in your bones is felt, a longing for greatness until, finally, she whispers, it’s time, then after that…history.
A door slams, and the couple stomps across the front lawn of the little blue house, two houses up from where Prudence is waiting patiently in her car. Behind the darkened shades of her sunglasses, she catches the exchange between the pair and curbs laughter. When after the boy asks a series of questions, the girl turns and unleashes a fit to be witnessed. Prudence couldn’t help but release her giggles. This girl was surely her mother’s daughter.
It wasn’t until the girl focused her fire on Prudence, that the laughter ceased, the sweat came, the heart beats thickened, and the anxiety formed. Prudence quickly pulled the black silk scarf, she had tied under her chin, forward when the girl who was stopped dead in her tracks, peered through the windshield; directly through her. She also raised the magazine that had previously napped in the passenger seat, to her nose; her slender yet wrinkled fingers clenching its thick sides so much it was shaking.
Even after the boy vanished behind the obnoxiously styled VW that was parked in his driveway, the girl lingered a little longer and that’s when Prudence felt it. There was a tug, small at first, but increasing with every second their eyes connected. Prudence wondered if she could feel it too; the ache. She wondered if her granddaughter felt Destiny calling.
And then it was over, the ache stopped just as the girl woke from the dead and climbed into the passenger seat. It quickly reversed, the tail lights shining through her windshield; the magazine between the lights and Prudence, blocking most of the glare as it speeds away, up past the house it just exited, past the house the duo walked out of.
Prudence tosses the September issue in the seat next to her and puts her fingers on the keys, still in the ignition. But just before she was about to start it up and follow the two, she sees the brake lights, when it pulls over and parks next to the curb, seven houses up from her. Prudence relaxes in her seat, only after the lights disappeared. She dropped her hands from her keys next, opting to keep some distance this time, so as not to provoke the powerful and with the threat gone at last, she let her mind relax.
There are too many emotions in guilt. Guilt was for the weak at heart. Prudence sat recollecting the words that had been burned into her from birth; the very words she too tried to instill in her daughter although she knew Persephone wasn’t strong enough for the challenge. It was the very reason why guilt was something Prudence never lived with because it was something she did not have. Perhaps she didn’t make the best decisions when it came to establishing a healthy relationship with her daughter but she made the tough decisions necessary to ensure Legend was not jeopardized because of her daughter’s petty little emotions.
“She will not ruin generations of progress, not my daughter,” Prudence said sternly into the rear-view mirror. She pulled her cold, pale skin back with both palms, stretching each cheek until the wrinkles flattened, reminiscing of a time when she looked that young, recalling a memory she doesn’t think of often; the day young Fiefer was born.
On a little island, on an even smaller village, in an even tinier hospital, Persephone, still woozy from the medication was fast asleep when she entered the room. Donned in a red wig and a pair of scrubs she had stolen from the nurse’s station, Prudence stared sweetly at her daughter for the first time in seven months. Persephone had not even told her she was pregnant when they last spoke, a conversation that quickly erupted into a major fight over a minor detail omitted from Legend.
She could remember stroking her daughter’s dark hair, kissing her forehead, watching the effects of the nightmare she was having play out through her body, yet still not ever having been that peaceful since ever. Persephone was an uneasy baby, that grew into a determined child that became a stubborn adult, but somehow, when she watched Fiefer, stirring in the bassinet next to her mother, Prudence knew she would be destined, and it wasn’t just the tugging on her soul in that moment that solidified her stance.
So, she made a decision and grabbed the chart off the wall, scribbling something down on it, knowing that once the medication wore off Persephone would be gone, to another city, maybe even another country, on the run from things she did not care to understand, not ever noticing the small addition made to an otherwise perfect name.
Prudence comes out of the memory, and turns the key in the ignition. “Guilt,” she smirked, “What about the people who have to make the tough decisions? Now those are the ones who need sympathy.”
Prudence completes her U-turn and begins cruising along the silent street, her wrinkled fingers clenching the steering wheel tightly, drifting farther and further away from the girl she has watched so intently since she was born; as the sun hides from her lover, the moon, for the 285th this year.
This work is created by, written by and belongs to Aecko and shared here for entertainment.