Belong
Lucille put the tea-tray down on the bedside repressing her wince as the muscles in her back ached where Mama had caned her two days prior. A day before Papa'd broken Mama's leg, Mama's screaming. Part of her was happy that Mama had to share her pain for once yet she pitied Mama because she was in even more pain than normal. Yet she did all that she could with the medicines, painkillers and tea.
When she turned to Mama the light from the fireplace cast its glow over the silver hair...the ring on Mama's finger. It was so beautiful the giant, multi-faceted garnet gleaming like blood, while the band was simple burnished gold. Since Mama belonged to Papa did that not mean she belonged to Thomas then ? Far more would she have belonged to Thomas than Papa.
As she lifted the bone-white tea cup to Mama's lips the elder woman lifted that ring-clad hand to further steady the cup. After Mama had a few sips she started complaining how if Papa hadn't his title or his beauty she never would have married him. How happy she would've been to never have met him so that herself and Thomas would never've been born because not only had they been unwanted they were ungrateful and useless. That the only thing that mattered about her and Papa's wedding was when he'd given her the ring and kissed her.
That was what she remembered three years later after holding Mama's still faintly twitching finger against the tub and chopping it off. Gleefully, she pulled the ring off and threw Mama's finger away then dragged Thomas down from the nursery. He gasped to see Mama's skull nearly split in two by the cleaver so she distracted him by giving him the ring then telling him to return it and kiss her. In her mind, they were married. Since she'd given the ring to him first that meant he belonged to her now, no ?