For many years, I have been caged here. Driven mad by those surround me, I look at these walls, crying, screaming, kicking, punching, trying to force the steel surrounding me to give way, to release me from its jaws of death. Though tomorrow, I will fall asleep for an eternity, as the doctors tell me solemnly, I feel the need –the necessity—to share my story, convince those near to me, or those who have experienced some of the same turn of events that I have, that what has happen to me was no of my personal doing, but an effect of what those around me did.
Over a hundred years ago, my great-grandfather was made a duke, one with many lands and a large yearly sum of money for him and his future children, along with the promise of future titles for them as well. Unfortunately, my grandfather, he died just before my father, his only son, was born, so the title was granted to one of my great-uncles, now deceased. With his then new-found riches, he bought our current house (though he had been renting it before that point), a beautiful, sweeping mansion, with dense forests full of game of all varieties, set on a gorgeous 30-acre plot, with very few neighbors. He was also set in his ways of keeping this power in his own bloodstream, not to be diluted by 'some foreigner,' in his own words. He married his favorite sister, and when he had kids and they grew up, he forced my grandfather, his eldest and a younger sibling to wed. He also instilled the value of keeping power in a solitary bloodline. Thus, when my father and his sister came of age, my grandfather stated in his will that they should be married. However, this 'small' action caused huge waves on the social scene, as both of my parents were among the most well-known bachelor/ettes in the late 1890's, my mother even more so than my father. She and her circle of friends were the most sought-after debutantes of the 19th century, both in their looks and personalities. My grandmama helped them with both aspects. Grandmama was a very old-fashioned woman, never learning how to drive a car, or use a phone. Mom, while she did have a phone installed, and voted occasionally when she finally could, never used said phone, or ever learned how to use it in the first place, and never even got near the driver's seat of a car. Thank goodness we have a chauffeur! Grandmama also taught my mom the value of frills, pink, and showing off her already abundant feminine side. Not a day went by, that I can remember, where Mother didn't wear some shade of pink or purple in her dress. But, again, it was a huge deal in common society when my parents were forced together and made to have children; myself and my brother.
I am the first born, escaping the effects of inbreeding that my poor brother wasn't not so fortunate to be freed from. He was born eight years after I was, and couldn't have been cuter. However, he had hemophilia, and some brain damage. My parents were perfectly attentive to me, but the switch must have flipped off for Charlie. They acted like they were oblivious to him, and more often than not left him to his own devices. They did go so far as to hire a nanny, but she only showed up at nighttime. In the end, I took on the role of Charlie's main caregiver, especially so when he bruised his knee, or scraped his finger, and I had to race around the mansion, or the castle, as it seemed to us back then, trying to find that one thing that would halt, or at the very least, pause the constant blood flow.
Less than a year after Charlie was born, my mother turned to the bottle to solve all of her 'problems,' and barely 2 years after that, my father tries to step in, again, during one of my mom's drunken rampages, but she ends up severely beating him, and he fled the property, never to be seen again for the next eight years. Charlie had run up into his bedroom, his refuge, when Mother knocked on the front door, somehow sensing that this fight wasn't going to end like the ones before. I trailed him up to his room, smushed into his closet, and ducked behind his dresser, sucking in absolutely everything in order to fit behind it. He was rocking back and forth, clutching, gripping, practically squeezing the life out – if there was ever any life to be squeezed out – of his favorite stuffed bear.
"I'm scared, sissy," his voice, small, childish, and high- pitched, emerged as a whisper from his small, frail body. "What if Mommy hurts Daddy?"
"Dad would never let Mom hurt him," I respond, in a whisper as well, straight up lying to his face, as he deserves to think his father is the greatest man in the world, or whatever other mental picture he has in his head, not the simpering coward I actually knew my father to be. In times like these, my brother needs to stay as sane as he possibly can, with as much help from me as he could ever want or need.
After my mother's rage quelled, and we picked up the pieces together, I told her about how frightened her little boy was of her, and advised that she uncover some sort of animal to give to him as an apology of sorts. I was hoping she would procure some sort of dog or another variety of tamed animal for him to play with, or, at the bare minimum, a new stuffed animal. Instead, in her own mad way, two days after the incident, she loads up my grandfather's old shotgun while I'm outside, pruning some old flowers. As I'm in the kitchen, just to start informing the servants about dinner preparations, she returns from the damp, dense woods, and walks, with a spring in her step, over to the industrial sized sink, and begins scrubbing the blood off of the pelt that she toted in with her. The blood begins to stream off fluidly, and white, matted fur peeps out under the blood and mud. She quickly flips it onto a nearby cutting board, grabs a knife, and strips it of its fur. Before leaving the spacious room, she gestures at the meat leftover and lets the cooks know, "I would like for you to serve this for dinner tonight. Please make sure, however, to fish out all of the bullets."
My increasingly more insane mother then sweeps out of the kitchen, ever the lady, even in her oldest, patched up dress. Gliding down hallways, I gap after her all the way up to Charlie's room (wondering in my head, How can someone in such a disgusting dress hold herself in a way that looks like she's a queen in ermine?), where she drives a nail through the baby blue wallpaper, and hangs the now distinguishable pelt, which I do believe to be a baby bunny pelt, by its tail.
"A dead baby bunny, mom? Hanging over his head, as he sleeps?! Why would Charlie ever want that?" I explode, feeling almost as if I'm the parent here, now, scolding the imbecile-acting child.
"You suggested it yourself," my mom spoke to the floor, a soft, inquisitive undertone running through her words, almost child-like in its context.
"I meant an actual animal." Trying to keep my anger inside me, I realize it's a fruitless attempt. "If you were a real mother, and not some shadow, you would notice the little things about Charlie and I, like this!" I slammed my hand down on his dresser, delivering my point, and whirled out of the room furiously. I thought I'd been clear, but the pelt stayed where it was, and I, the scared 11-year-old I was, having already fought with my mother once, was too scared to remove it myself, or ask her to do it. Thus, it stayed where it was, and Charlie began to visit my room, in fear, more and more often, sleeping in a makeshift bed on the floor of my soft-carpeted room. It was also beginning to cross my mind more and more frequently, that my mother was not the same person she was when it was just me scampering around the house.
