I watch my daughters as they play in our back yard- the eldest reading underneath a tree, the middle playing on a swing hanging from the same tree, and the youngest racing across the yard with the two Mellark children. The older girls with dirty blond hair, and oval-shaped faces like their father. The youngest looked like me. I watched her run the long grass, her light hair flowing behind her in the wind, her joy written clearly on her face. She was the very picture of freedom. They all were, in their own ways.
Everything that I knew and loved was gone. My capitol betrayed me. My home and belongings were either destroyed, or taken away. My father, the last member of my family, found dead on the street. After my rescue from my (formerly) beloved Capitol, I turned to alcohol.
Haymitch and I rediscovered each other a few years afterwards in a bar in what used to be District 12. They had been rebuilding there. I had hoped that it wouldn't be as dreary as the last one was. The night that I met with Haymitch, I was still wearing my old Capitol clothes, although the people around me openly despised them for where they came, and for good reason. But the Capitol is where I was born. It was where I grew-up, and where the people that I had loved lived. The Capitol (well, the Capitol that I originally believed in) was just as much a part of me as my own heart. I could not give up these clothes. Being reminded of home, and of simpler times was much more important to me than what the other citizens thought. I had no friends there anyways, and nothing to lose.
Haymitch and I got along much better than we did before. Perhaps it was the fact that I was drunk, or that I lied to myself, and believed that he had been right about liquor solving your problems. Either way, as anti-social as Haymitch may have seemed, he always welcomed a drinking partner with an open bottle. So we moved from the bar to his home, and sat on the floor, with the burning liquor drowning out the memories of our painful histories.
When we discovered that I was expecting, Haymitch simply bit his lip, and went back to his bottle. I was mortified. Neither of us were in the right state of mind to raise a child. I had never even planned on becoming a mother. And how I was raised, a child born outside of wedlock was scandalous. The next day, I literally dragged Haymitch down to the mayor's house, and we were announced Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy. It was then that I erased all alcohol from my diet.
The first feeling of my daughter stirring inside me was what separated my past life from the one that I am now living. I was no longer Effie Trinket, the Capitol citizen. With one flutter of a small baby's kick, I became Effie Abernathy, a woman who made her home in District 12 with her husband, and was starting a family. Most importantly, I would no longer be taking innocent children from their homes to be slaughtered in the Hunger Games, but would be bringing a new life into the world.
As soon as the small, pink baby was placed on my stomach, Haymitch and I agreed that her name should be Maysilee Rue Abernathy- for the woman who saved Haymitch in the fiftieth Hunger Games, and the little girl whose death helped to spark the second rebellion. Little Maysilee and I got on from the beginning- she came with a strict feeding and sleeping schedule, and eventually adopted my taste for bright, flamboyant clothes. Her younger sisters, Kitty and Abigale, seemed to inherit their father's timeliness and fashion, or lack-thereof.
To my surprise, Haymitch has been a decent father. All three girls- especially Kitty- adore him. Haymitch, although not being at all romantic, has been making sure to teach all three girls the traits that a good future husband should have. I suppose it's partially out of fear of letting another family member down. He still hasn't gave up alcohol, but makes sure to drink it when locked away up in our bedroom. The idea that he is passed out, and possibly vomiting on the very spot that I sleep disgusts me. But the thought of any one of the children getting the idea that it's alright to excessively drink is even more disturbing. So each night, after each girl is sound asleep, the room, bed, and Haymitch all get good baths.
As I watch my girls from the (now clean) kitchen, I realize how restricting the Capitol had been. If you dared say something, anything that could even remotely be against the Capitol, you were either killed, tortured, or turned into a slave and had your tongue cut off. I still fear that something might happen. That one of the girls will say something that would have been sensitive in the Capitol, and the Peacekeepers will come to kill her. But I need not worry about that. They are free.
And so am I.