It was almost ironic that, at twenty-three, she was everything she had tried so desperately hard not to be: a pregnant blonde trophy wife.
The marriage had been enough of a rebellion to shock her mother. The pregnancy, however, was too deep into gruesome suburbia for her to possibly fathom. She prided herself on never showing weakness. She did not complain, did not reveal her private thoughts, did not crumble.
Pregnancy made her crumble.
It made her weak. She, who never needed to blow her nose, who never bloated, who never suffered from anything other than an elegant headache, seemed to swell overnight. She sweated. Her chin pimpled. She was so nauseous that she retched, blanched and wobbled in the vicinity of perfume, cigarettes and meat.
Her even temper disappeared and she was nothing short of a raging harpy. She sobbed uncontrollably, threw diva fits worthy of any Highland Park belle and managed to thoroughly baffle her husband, who was the sort of southern gentleman who had a firm belief in the privacy of 'womens' matters'.
He asked her what she wanted to do.
She wanted to be Claire Underwood again.