They always told her she was beautiful. That she would have beautiful children.
The child had destroyed her figure.
If she wasn't beautiful, what was she? What worth did she have?
...
They always told her she was beautiful. That she would have beautiful children.
The child had destroyed her figure.
If she wasn't beautiful, what was she? What worth did she have?
She was young. Fresh out of high school, when she met Jim at a country bar. She had a fake ID. In school they had called her a tramp, a harlot. It wasn't true, even if she had the figure to put a porn star to shame. She was an attractive amount of tall and thin. Her curves were in all the right places. She'd had this figure since she was twelve.
When her breasts came in and she was labeled a slut. Her mother told her to cover up. Her father started acting strange around her. He didn't hug her. She didn't understand at the time.
Being labeled bad shaped her behavior. She smoked cigarettes and stayed out late. She was interested in boys, but not as interested in them as they were in her. Her boyfriends wanted sex. Many of the boys, many much older than her, wanted sex. She didn't know this at the time. She was friends with many of the boys; the girls called her a slut, and she soon realized it wasn't friendship on the boy's minds.
The first time she did it, she was fourteen. He had asked. She protested. He kept asking. He did it anyways. It hurt. It was degrading. She grew used to it. It wasn't rape. Eventually she liked that it was degrading; and would seek it out. This is what she was meant for, right? She was a woman. She bled. This is what people like her were made for.
She was beautiful.
Nobody was beautiful for themselves, they were beautiful for others. She didn't have a choice in the matter; to be beautiful. Beautiful was sexual. It was an advantage, and a vulnerability.
She wasn't particularly smart, at least that's what they told her. She had a wicked wit, but she was told it wasn't kind to use it. Her wit made men chase her. Her wit made them feel more accomplished when they caught her. She might as well let them catch her. They would pursue her anyways. It was better if she could somewhat control the situation. Total control was impossible; she was not in charge, but she didn't know if she trusted herself to be in control.
People kept telling her what she wanted.
She was 'fiesty'. Being feisty didn't deter others; they saw it as a challenge. She was something to be conquered. She didn't know if she liked that or not.
She met Jim when she was nineteen. He was much older than her. She didn't care. Most men were older than her. He treated her like a princess.
He was rough around the edges in a way she wanted to fix. He drank and he was fun. He worshipped the ground she walked on.
He told her how beautiful she was. He told her how smart she was, 'clever' he kept saying. She denied that he only kept her around because she was beautiful; a trophy.
Jim had been courting her for months before she knew about the woman. The woman who had a child with Jim. She was intensely jealous that this plain, quiet, woman was married to the man who chased her; pampered her, who made her feel something. The other woman didn't love Jim like she did. This woman couldn't compete with her.
When she found out about the wife, Jim complained to her about the woman. Told her his grievances with her, his sob story, told her how she could never compare to her golden locks and fire for life. The plain woman couldn't compare to what they had.
She understood, in her own way. She felt bad for him. Nobody could love Jim like she did.
She met the other woman only a few times. The woman didn't fight her. Looking on with empty hazel eyes as her husband coddled a new woman. The woman knew her fate. The woman let the vixen take her man.
She hated it. She wanted a fight, a triumphant victory, not this woman's quiet surrender. She wanted to be feared. She wanted to be acknowledged as a threat. She wanted dominance.
The wife avoided her. She felt the wife looked down on her, maybe pitied her.
She told Jim about this. She made up stories of how the wife treated her. Not made up, she told herself, embellished; she felt like they were real.
Eventually it happened.
He kicked the woman out and she moved in, but a small child was left behind. A small, unassuming mousy boy who hesitantly, but politely, interacted with her. He knew she was the reason his mother was gone. He knew she was the 'other woman.'
She was critical of the boy. She kept a watchful eye on him, but mothered him to please Jim. The boy was pretty self-sufficient; it made her job easy.
She lived with Jim for three months before she got pregnant.
She was never married to Jim. She never expected to get pregnant.
She didn't think much of marriage, that wasn't the issue. She didn't want to be a wife, but she wanted a wedding dress, a ring, a party. She wanted a symbol that Jim was hers and he couldn't leave her. She would not be like with the other woman.
There was no one more beautiful than her.
But now she was pregnant.
She hated being pregnant.
She felt sick and ugly. Eating anything made her nauseous, but she kept gaining weight anyway. Her body was becoming distorted, breasts comically large and tender, curves becoming matronly not youthful. Not keeping the child hadn't occurred to her. She would feel like a monster if she did. But still…. She didn't want it. In a small town people would talk.
In the coming months she tried to grow fond of it. People putting their hands on her growing belly, congratulating Jim, telling her what good mother she would be. Telling her how beautiful her child would be.
She wasn't beautiful anymore. She was 'cute'. She was 'maternal'. She was tired. She wasn't a princess anymore, she was a thing. A thing carrying a child.
Jim didn't seem to want the child either. He seemed surprised at first, but shook it off as 'just something women did'. She was frustrated. It wasn't her fault she was pregnant.
He didn't pamper her. Pregnant women needed a different pampering than he could provide.
He was frustrated with her.
She was alone. Her family didn't help. She was a bad girl; she should have waited, she should have gotten married first.
The only one who cared was the boy. Griffin, she told herself, she always reminded herself to call him by his name now. He watched her as her belly grew. He asked her questions about it. Was it a boy or a girl? What names was she thinking of. Would he be able to be the big brother even though they were from different mothers. She felt pathetic that her only friend was a child; the child of a woman she had chased away. No men found her attractive anymore.
He seemed excited, as excited as his mild personality would let him be. He seemed to want to be a big brother. He didn't get excited about many things. He liked baseball, and playing pretend; she supposed there were worse traits for a brother. She barely thought of his mother anymore, but she acknowledged he wasn't her own.
Her mood continued to decline.
The child was born in August. He was healthy, if not a little small. She hated giving birth, but she was glad to not have a caesarean scar. He was born in the morning. She named him Aslan. She wanted him to be a brave lion. Her grandmother had always loved the name. Jim told her it was silly to name him after a character from a children's book.
Her little boy had a mop of blonde hair and vibrant wide green eyes sparkling at the world around him. He was a happy baby. A bright boy.
She was tired. She envied him.
Jim didn't know how to take care of a baby. But now other women helped her….now that she finally had the baby. They helped the baby, not her. Until she messed that up. Anger at their pity. Anger at not being independent, but simultaneous anger at not being helped enough. It was anger at being tied down. Anger that things her life would never be the same.
Now only Griffin helped her.
He would happily give the baby his bottle. Jim taught him to change the diapers out of not wanting to do it himself. She re-taught Griffin to change diapers. She had been a babysitter as a teenager…. She tried not to remember that she had been considered a teenager until a year ago.
She couldn't take this anymore. She needed to leave. To go anywhere. Anywhere that wasn't here. Someplace without the child, where nobody knew her. Someplace without Jim. Yes, she had begun to blame Jim for her problems. She knew it was wrong, but was it entirely mislead? There's no way she could have so severely messed up her life on her own. It wasn't her fault she was feeling these things.
They were fighting more. His temper no longer humored her. His patience was wearing thin. She was never the type to just agree and go along. Their arguments were loud. There was yelling. He threw things. She threw things too.
Griffin hid upstairs, they barely noticed his existence during these times. Aslan was in his crib in the main room. He cried when there were arguments. Sometimes Griffin could sense before they came, and took Aslan upstairs with him.
He had never hit her up until the end. And it wasn't a hit really, just a slap. Across the face. She felt she deserved it. It happened a few more times after that. Maybe it progressively got worse, she didn't know. She knew she was also getting out of hand.
She would have loved to say that was the reason she left, but the truth is she just couldn't take it anymore. Any of it. She hated this life. So one day, she just decided to leave. It's not like she owned a lot of things. She called a male childhood friend to pick her up while Jim was at work. She was supposed to be watching the kids.
Griff was upstairs with Aslan. She saw his round face in the upstairs window as they drove away.
…
She had a drinking problem now, but it was under control. She had a string of boyfriends, but avoided getting too close. She was beautiful for a woman her age, but she didn't feel beautiful. She wasn't beautiful like she had been. Her face was obscured by heavy makeup that she thought helped. Her voice croaked from cigarettes. She had given up custody in court a long time ago.
Sometimes she thought about him. She wondered if her son had grown up to be a strong man. If he liked football, if he had a girlfriend now. She wondered about the type of car he drove; was it a sporty muscle car or a truck? She wondered if he was a man's man like Jim. She wondered if Jim liked him. If Jim had learned how to be a father.
She wondered about the other boy, the timid one with the plain brown hair. The child of the other woman. She wondered if he treated her Aslan well.
She wondered if her son turned out like her.
Notes: I wanted to make Ash's mom a human struggling with many of the same issues as her son would, but in an melancholic everyday sense, in denial. I love how BF touches on that 'pretty' is usually not equated with 'smart', and that beauty/sex appeal can be as much of a curse as a blessing. Also the loss of identity/ autonomy that comes from one's sole defining trait being physical. Thank you Lana Del Rey.