Notes: This is a little series of mini fics about Helga's mother. I feel so bad for her character. Even though she's a terrible mother and a waste of space, it's obvious that she wasn't always that way. So, this is my attempt at a little insight into her character. As of 12/12, I have made some edits here and there, corrected some mistakes, consolidated it into one chapter.
Disclaimer: All major characters belong to Craig Bartlett!
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"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure."
- George Edward Woodberry
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Mistake.
As she took another sip of her frozen cocktail – her fourth since dinner – Miriam Pataki contemplated her life. She was a fifty-eight year old woman, well over the hill, almost sixty. And she had officially been miserable for two thirds of her life.
She stared absentmindedly into the living room. Blue light from the TV was flashing against the wall and Bob was snoring loudly. She hated him.
Maybe she loved him once, briefly. He hadn't been her first endeavor into romance; not even her first serious boyfriend. He had just been the one who got her pregnant. But maybe she did love him, back then. She couldn't remember.
She had been a sophomore in college, but still so naïve. He was five years older than her, a salesman at the local appliance store with a degree in business and dreams of entrepreneurship. She thought he was charming, and was also flattered that a twenty-four year old man would even notice her. Her friends thought he was a jerk, that he was an arrogant man with a temper, constantly getting into bar fights and then bragging about them. They warned her that he would eventually make her miserable. They were right, of course, but she didn't listen. She liked his desire for success and the way he smiled at her, his arm muscles and the way he touched her when they were alone.
Of course, she never thought about a future with him. She never really had a choice about that, it just happened that way. They had barely been together for two months before she found out she was pregnant. She hated herself, right then, for not putting her foot down when he whined about how condoms weren't comfortable, but it couldn't be undone. She couldn't bring herself to end it, and Bob convinced her that their life together would be nothing short of perfection – they would be married and their baby would be brilliant and talented and one day he would own his own company and their little family would only have the best of everything.
She was enthralled by his ambition, and couldn't help but gush over his excitement. Maybe he did love her and she loved him and their life would be perfect. So she agreed to marry him. College was no longer in her cards, so she dropped out after the fall semester ended, vowing to go back one day. She never did.
They married in January and Olga was born in April. She hadn't even turned twenty yet, and she was a wife and a mother. It all happened so fast; before she knew it, they had moved far away from her parents and her life as she knew it was over. Their apartment in Hillwood City was small, but Bob was determined to make things better for his precious, perfect, beautiful baby girl.
For a while, things were okay. Bob was swiftly promoted, again and again, which enabled them to buy their blue brownstone. He showered Olga with gifts and attention while money that would eventually go into his beloved beeper empire was set aside with each paycheck. He was always good at finances.
No, she couldn't say she was miserable back then. It was true that she was all but invisible to Bob, but it didn't bother her. She could concentrate on raising Olga, who proved to be a talented and bright child. Watching her dance and listening to her play the piano allowed Miriam to forget all that she left behind in order to be a mother. She didn't make a fatal mistake, like she sometimes feared. Swimming, horseback riding, and a career were small prices to pay to have such a perfect daughter… right?
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Catalyst.
Things with Bob didn't get bad until Helga was born, like her existence was a curse upon their family. Miriam hated to think of it that way but it was true, even though Helga didn't mean it and couldn't truly be blamed.
It happened when Bob first opened the beeper emporium: she became pregnant again. When he found out, he was not happy. To her surprise, he even urged her to end it, justifying it by saying things about how they couldn't afford another kid. He just spent his entire savings starting his company, for cripes sake, Miriam. They didn't have space for another kid. Olga needed the spare bedroom for practicing dance. Olga needed all of their extra money for lessons in ballet, saxophone, piano, gymnastics and classical opera – not to mention private school.
She was horrified that Bob, who had so adamantly opposed an abortion twelve years previously, was trying to convince her to have one the second time around. But she refused; it was one of the only times she ever went against him. What sense did it make that she should give up everything she had for her first daughter and not even give a second baby a chance? How would that be fair? And on top of that, why was he so excited about her pregnancy with Olga, but so distraught over the notion of having another child?
So Helga was born in March of the following year, and life in the Pataki household became unbearable. Bob rarely held Helga, and if she cried, he would scream at Miriam to make 'the kid' stop. He remembered her name about as often as he forgot Olga's, and Miriam, even now, couldn't think of a single time Bob expressed genuine, selfless love for his second daughter. For a long time she tried to convince herself that he loved her, deep down. But she honestly didn't think he did. For some reason, inexplicably, he felt disdain for Helga. Cutting back on spending by sending Olga to public school was all they really needed to do in order to live comfortably with two kids. It wasn't as if anyone was left wanting for nice things or new toys. But even so, he took no interest in her existence unless doing so directly benefited him. And for eighteen years Miriam tried to pretend that was just how he showed affection, ignoring the fact that he acted completely differently with Olga.
For Helga's entire young life, she was never good enough for Bob. In his eyes, she could never live up to Olga. She cute never be as smart, or as pretty. It was irrational, especially since Helga took after him more than Olga did. Miriam tried to make up for his lack of affection at first, showering Helga with hugs and kisses and trying to foster her creativity (something, she admitted, Olga always lacked). But it was hard. Bob was so overpowering, and his constant disapproval of her affection toward Helga eventually made her stop.
She hated how her youngest child suffered on a daily basis. She really did. But there was nothing she could do. She couldn't stand up to Bob. She hadn't been her own person since she was nineteen. She all but forgot how to speak her mind. Helga was about two years old when Miriam realized that, unbeknownst to her, her marriage had turned unhealthy. She was a wife with no life outside her home. No friends. No interests. She even had a weekly allowance. She never noticed before that Bob controlled every aspect of her life – she never had a reason to question it until he somehow forced her to stop being a proper mother to Helga.
She always hated herself for what she did after that. She could have defended her daughter. She could have defended herself. She could even have left him, if it came down to it. But she didn't do any of those things.
She just drank. And drinking helped her ignore her failures, it muffled the sounds of all the constant yelling, and allowed her to laugh off her family's spiraling dysfunction. It was bliss.
And so, every day since, she drank.
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Resentment.
Miriam couldn't help it. In one way or another, she resented every member of her family.
She resented Bob for being a tyrant, and for putting Olga's well-being before his own, but no one else's. She hated him for what he did to her, his own wife. She knew she must have been such a disappointment to her parents when she married him. She could have gotten her degree and gone on to be a physical therapist like she intended. She could have participated in the Olympics if she'd followed the track she was on. She could have married a rancher and had horses and land, like she always dreamed. She never wanted to live in a city. Yes, she hated 'Big Bob' for taking away her freedom and independence. And she hated herself more for allowing it to happen.
She resented Olga for always being the center of everyone's world. The Earth seemed to revolve around that girl. She was good at everything, enough to gain praise and straight A's in school at least, and, on the surface, always achieved perfection. Miriam knew that underneath it all, Olga was racked with anxiety and constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown, but still – she hated how good the 'perfect daughter' was at presenting the world with a picture of happiness. Miriam had stopped pretending to be happy a long time ago; she'd forgotten how to.
She even resented Helga. For a long time, she wanted to make things better for her, but once she started to drink, she almost completely ignored Helga's existence. She practically raised herself, miraculously. Miriam knew what she and Bob did to that girl was abuse, there was no getting around that. On her part, it came down to severe neglect – she was never a true mother, save for maybe a few days scattered here and there when she tried to get her act together. And Bob… well, he constantly berated Helga, calling her out on her mistakes and never praising her achievements. The verbal abuse he put her through was unbelievable. When she was a teenager there were even a few times when he became violent. It was all Miriam's fault, really. She enabled it by ignoring what was going on. By drinking it away, as if that would help her daughter. But Helga overcame it. She was brilliant. Smarter than Olga, far more perceptive, and one hundred times as creative. She was a true artist. A poet and a sculptor. She was outspoken and blunt, never failing to speak her mind and stand up for what she thought was right, even – no, especially – when it came to Bob. She was everything Miriam wasn't. She lived through a life with Bob and came out stronger for it, while Miriam had given up long ago.
Mostly she resented herself, though, for what she let herself become. She was a shell of a woman. A waste of space. Her husband was crazy. And together, they royally fucked up their children, in different ways. Olga was an anal retentive time bomb, and Helga wanted nothing to do with any of them now.
She drained the last bit of liquid from her glass. Yes, she resented everyone else, but no more than she did herself.
...
Happiness.
After all her years in Hillwood, Miriam was still miserable and still drinking. Nothing had really changed inside their house, save for the absence of children. She spent nearly every night alone in the kitchen thinking back on all the mistakes she made in her life. That was the extent of her existence at this point: thoughts of regret and loss. Life was no better now than it was ten years ago, or twenty years ago. The only difference was that now she was stuck in the house with Bob almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And she still felt so utterly alone.
When Olga was thirty, she married a man named Daniel after devoting four years of her life to Broadway acting – something at which she failed miserably. She now taught third grade at PS 119 and had two children, ages seven and four. She constantly called Miriam complaining about her job – the thrill of molding young minds had left her. Not only that, but her own kids were brats. The older girl was as spoiled and self centered as Olga ever was, but without the feigned concern for underdeveloped countries and homeless people. The younger, a boy, was fat and greedy, and threw temper tantrums like Miriam had never seen.
But that would all be fine if it weren't for the fact that Bob, regrettably, handed his company over to Daniel upon retiring at sixty. In the three years since, Daniel successfully ran Big Bob's Beepers into the ground. After that, it was nothing but a memory, and Daniel was no longer welcome in the Pataki household. Olga supported their entire family on her meager teacher's salary, while Daniel was content with never leaving the couch. Her once bright and ambitious daughter was now irrevocably dejected.
Following his retirement, Bob ignored Miriam's existence unless he needed someone to vent about Daniel to, or to regale with stories of his now extinct empire. His beloved lucky belt was always either on him or beside him, and he spent most of his time watching TV. This worked out fine for Miriam; it allowed her to devote more time to drinking.
As for Helga, well… she successfully cut them all out of her life as soon as she was able to, and Miriam couldn't blame her. She didn't know much about Helga's life. She knew she went to a good college and got a degree in creative writing, and had published a book since graduating – was it a novel or poetry? Miriam couldn't remember. She'd been meaning to pick it up, really, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.
She also knew she had an ongoing relationship with the boy Bob so fondly referred to as "that orphan kid", although Miriam could have sworn he had parents. She and Bob had gone to their wedding, though they took no part in the ceremony. Helga even walked down the aisle alone – Bob was not her father, as far as she was concerned, and didn't deserve the honor of giving her away.
They barely spoke after that, and Miriam sometimes wondered if, when Helga did call her, it was only after a lot of urging on Arnold's part. But she knew she had a son now. Phil. That was his name. Miriam saw him once, at the grocery store three months ago. He was the sweetest baby, but the conversation between her and Helga was awkward and forced.
She understood why she and Bob weren't welcome in their grandchild's life. Helga was only trying to protect him from her alcoholism and Bob's disinterest. Though, really, disinterest didn't even begin to describe it. When Miriam told him about their impromptu meeting later that night, he just told her to be quiet while 'The Wheel' was on.
Maybe if she went back to Alcoholics Anonymous and actually stuck with it, maybe if she read her book, maybe if she begged and pleaded, Helga would let her come over sometimes. They would have tea and she would read Helga's latest poems. Maybe they would even get the true mother daughter relationship they never had, but only caught brief glimpses of for so many years. She would get to witness what true, unconditional love was just by seeing the way her daughter and son-in-law looked at each other. Phil would call her grandma and smile sweetly, and maybe scribble something with crayon for her to bring home as a souvenir.
She would like that. To be able to spend time in a happy home, with a happy family, if only for an afternoon.
It would be nice to feel happy.
End.