Chapter 7: Flawed
Mercifully for Mia, she did not have a session with Parliament that day. However, she would still be very busy throughout the day with other meetings and appointments with various diplomats from other countries. Meanwhile, after Joseph had a private talk with Mia the night before and got nowhere, he began his investigation into what was going on with her by asking a very reliable source: Charlotte. And Joseph didn't beat around the bush. He just came right out and asked her point blank when they were alone just outside Mia's empty office if she knew if whether or not there was anything wrong with Mia and if it had anything to do with her sudden plans to go to Switzerland.
And Charlotte didn't beat around the bush either. "The answer to both your questions is yes. There is something going on with the Queen and it does have to do with her trip to Switzerland. I'm really sorry, but I cannot say anything more than that. The Queen forbids me to discuss it."
"I understand. Just tell me this: is it anything serious?"
Charlotte locked her eyes with Joseph in that moment and told him, "It's very serious, Joe. You and Queen Clarisse really need to talk to her and try to get her to open up about what's going on, and you need to do it soon, before she leaves."
"Right," said Joseph, and then he left to continue his investigation.
In the meantime, Clarisse was upstairs in Mia's suite. She had borrowed a pair of Mia's earrings and worn them at a royal dinner they'd all attended a couple of nights before, and she was there now to return them. After she put them back with the rest of Mia's jewelry, Clarisse began to walk out of the suite when she saw Mia's diary lying open, face down on the floor. Ordinarily, Mia was never careless about her diary. Mia always kept it locked and tucked away safely in one of her drawers, but Clarisse knew she had forgotten to set her alarm the night before and had woken up late that morning, and that she had probably forgotten about her diary because she'd been in such a rush to get to her first meeting of the day with a diplomat from Portugal. Clarisse bent down to pick it up and put it back on Mia's nightstand where she'd left it, of course, but after she picked it up, she accidentally lost her grip on it for a second, and she lost the place where Mia had bookmarked her diary. As she went to close it, Clarisse saw a phrase written on one of the pages that caught her eye. It said: As much as I love her, Grandma can be SO frustrating sometimes!
As much as I love her, Grandma can be so frustrating sometimes. Those words stung. Clarisse knew in that moment that she should just shake it off and forget about it; that diaries were for expressing temporary emotions and that Mia had probably written those words after an argument they'd had in the past or something. And above all else, she knew she should do the right thing and respect Mia's privacy by closing the diary, putting it down, and forgetting about what she'd just seen. As a royal herself, the queen part of Clarisse well understood how it felt to have someone else constantly invading her privacy. How could she do that to her granddaughter now? However, there was also the grandma part of her that was hurt and upset about what she'd just seen in Mia's diary. She'd always thought she'd been kind and generous to her only grandchild. Why would Mia think she was so frustrating? What had she done to offend her?
Over the next several moments, those questions continued to gnaw and gnaw away at Clarisse until finally, she just couldn't stand it anymore. The grandma won out over the ever-proper queen, and she sat down on the side of Mia's bed and allowed herself to read the entire diary entry. It said:
Dear Diary,
I just got into a really big fight with Grandma tonight, and I am MAJORLY depressed. This whole becoming a queen thing is SO HARD! Of course, I always knew it wouldn't be easy, but I really wasn't prepared inside for how difficult this is actually becoming. First I find out that I have to agree to an arranged marriage and get married within thirty days or else I forfeit the throne to Lord Nicholas Devereaux. THEN I find out that Nicholas Devereaux is actually this VERY hot-looking guy I met at my twenty-first birthday party, whom I'd had kind of a crush on (AND STILL DO!) Ever since then, it's been a series of embarrassing royal goof-ups. Viscount Mabrey and his nephew Nicholas have managed to mess things up for me in EVERY single public appearance I've had since I came to live in Genovia full-time.
But today was the worst one yet, and this one was, admittedly, just as much my fault as it was theirs. Nicholas grabbed me and started kissing me at the royal garden party today in front of the water fountain, and unfortunately, even though I am engaged now, I allowed the kiss to continue for WAY longer than I should have. Long story short, Nicholas and I eventually ended up falling into the nearby water fountain together. My fiancé, Andrew Jacoby, the Duke of Kenilworth from England, is a sweet, handsome guy and I really like him, but there's just no FIRE with him. No excitement. No sparks. No attraction. No ANYTHING! But with Nicholas, it's the exact opposite. Nicholas has a sense of fun and excitement that Andrew just doesn't have, and when he grabbed me and kissed me all of the sudden at the royal garden party today, all I could think was how much I LOVED that kiss and how much I wanted it to continue. Andrew hasn't even TRIED to kiss me yet. Shouldn't he be showing me some affection? Trying to win my heart? At least Nicholas LETS ME KNOW that he's attracted to me.
UGH! What am I saying?! I'm talking about the man WHO'S TRYING TO STEAL MY FAMILY'S CROWN! I KNOW he's probably just manipulating me. It's just so hard to get my mind off him, even though I REALLY want to. It's not that I WANT these embarrassing slip-ups to happen, you know. I DON'T. I don't like Nicholas toying with my emotions the way that he does. I CERTAINLY don't like having the entire palace AND the entire country of Genovia sticking their noses into my personal business all the time, and for the ENTIRE WORLD to see it when I mess everything up. I'm just so confused about what I'm feeling and about what I'm going through right now.
To make matters worse, Grandma isn't exactly understanding, and she's CERTAINLY not there for me to help me try to sort all this craziness out. Grandma was FURIOUS about the water fountain incident, and we got mad at each other and had a big fight about it and now she's angry at me, which REALLY hurts. I know that Grandma is a WAY better royal than I could ever hope to be. I am NO Clarisse Renaldi, and I know that. I know I'm not perfect all the time the way she is, and there's no way I ever can be. I am simply too flawed. I know that at least to a certain degree, she will always be at least a little disappointed in me because I can never be as good at this job as she is, and that's a painful thing to live with. Unfortunately, my blood may be royal, but my heart isn't. In my heart, I can't stop being the same simple, ordinary, geeky, clumsy girl Grandma first met five years ago. I just wish sometimes that that simple, ordinary, geeky, clumsy girl could be enough for Grandma and that she could just love me and believe in me anyway, regardless of how imperfect I am in comparison to her. And it would ALSO be nice if we could actually TALK about what's going on inside me like OTHER grandmothers and granddaughters do! Instead, it's just royal duty this and royal duty that. As much as I love her, Grandma can be SO frustrating sometimes!
After reading that diary entry, it all made a lot more sense to Clarisse…painful sense. Both the grandma and the queen inside Clarisse felt a lot of hurt and sorrow after reading Mia's words. Yes, Mia had made a lot of foolish mistakes and had not been as mature as a person preparing to ascend the throne of a country needed to be at that time. And yes, as Queen, Clarisse had gotten very frustrated with her granddaughter's antics because Mia's mistakes could have cost her the crown, which would have been detrimental to their entire country. But Clarisse also knew after reading that diary entry that Mia did have a point. Clarisse had been so wrapped up in being the Queen and in her worries over Viscount Mabrey and Lord Devereaux stealing the throne that she hadn't really been there for her granddaughter through it all as a grandma. She honestly never once stopped to consider the kind of emotional upheaval a young girl like Mia had probably been going through, having an arranged marriage suddenly forced upon her and having a young snake like Nicholas manipulating her emotions in the process. She really could have taken more time to listen to Mia and be there for her and give her some kind of guidance beyond just yelling at her and getting angry at her, but she hadn't. And it was even more painful to read that Mia felt she was "flawed" and that she believed Clarisse thought of her as a disappointment.
Clarisse knew in that moment that she should simply stop what she was doing, close her granddaughter's diary, put it down, and walk out of her suite. The queen in her kept telling her that snooping through her granddaughter's diary was highly inappropriate behavior. But the grandma in her kept wanting to know if feeling flawed was something that Mia really struggled with all the time, or if it had merely been a temporary feeling because of their argument. And again, in the battle of wills between the queen and the grandma, the grandma won. Clarisse turned to a later entry Mia made in her diary about five months ago. It said:
Dear Diary,
Today has been UNBELIEVABLE! After I went to see Nicholas at his new house yesterday and found him IN THE ACT WITH ANOTHER WOMAN ON HIS LIVING ROOM COUCH, I honestly didn't see HOW things could get any worse! Well, I was wrong. Things COULD and DID get worse. A LOT WORSE! Nicholas actually DARED to show his face at the palace today, begging my forgiveness, claiming it was just a one-time thing, blah, blah, blah. We ended up getting in a big shouting match over it. I hated to lose my composure and yell, but I was just in so much pain already, and I simply wanted him to leave me ALONE! He kept trying to go on about how his little fling had happened because I hadn't been paying him enough attention and because his other little girlfriend on the side had apparently made him feel more important than I did, and he also kept going on and on about how hard it was to be in the shadow of a queen, and all of that just made me SO MAD. I have ALWAYS paid as much attention to Nicholas as I possibly could, but he needs to realize that I'm not going to have as much time for him as other girlfriends in the past have had. I am running an entire COUNTRY, here! HEL-LO! And even if I HAVEN'T been paying him as much attention as another girlfriend could, that's still no reason to cheat!
AND to make matters even WORSE, after the news of my big fight with Nicholas made its rounds through the palace rumor mill and reached Grandma, SHE had to get in the act and start making me feel bad, too! After my big fight with Nicholas, I had ANOTHER big fight with Grandma. Just like last time with the water fountain incident, she was all mad at me because I "lost it," to use my phrase. She reminded me ONCE AGAIN that being royal means you can't lose it and that we royals are supposed to be the people who find it. YES, I KNOW that being a queen means "I'm held to higher standards of behavior," as Grandma always says. I KNOW I shouldn't have lost my composure today and made a big scene. It's just that I was hurting SO MUCH, and sometimes, it REALLY would be nice if instead of getting all angry at me for failing to live up to her expectations, Grandma could just be the kind of grandma who would provide a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on when I've been hurt.
She has NO IDEA what this kind of thing does to my self-esteem. I understand it all now why she and Dad never communicated with me for nearly the first sixteen years of my life, but that doesn't change the fact that that decision had a VERY negative impact on me inside. For nearly SIXTEEN YEARS, I grew up believing that my own father and my own grandparents didn't even care enough about me to pick up a phone and have a mere CONVERSATION with me. Yeah, Dad paid for my school tuition and he sent me a birthday present every year, but I had no way of knowing all my life if he REALLY did those things because he loved me or if it was only because he felt obligated to. Growing up without ever ONCE hearing from my own father made me believe that if MY OWN DAD could reject me and refuse to be in my life like that, I must really be worthless. Growing up taking all the verbal and emotional abuse I took from all the other kids in school only reinforced that. And growing up thinking that you're worthless for ALMOST SIXTEEN YEARS is a VERY hard thing to overcome. When things like this happen – when the boyfriend I HAD THOUGHT really loved me cheats on me, and when my grandma puts me down for my mistakes on top of THAT – it just makes me feel so worthless and flawed all over again. I have to work SO HARD for self-confidence. Would it really KILL Grandma to actually do things to HELP me with that? Would it KILL HER to tell me she's proud of me when I do something good? Would it KILL HER to actually look me in the eye and tell me that she loves me?
The first diary entry Clarisse read was stinging and painful, but this one was nothing short of heartbreaking. Once again, Clarisse came to the bitterly painful realization that she had spent far too much time looking at hers and Mia's lives through the eyes of the Queen and not nearly enough time looking at their lives through the eyes of Grandma. She'd been so busy being the Queen that as Grandma, she honestly hadn't even once thought about Mia's perspective the way she should have. Of course deep down, Clarisse had always known that she'd never really addressed this issue between Mia and herself the way she should have a long time ago. It had just always hurt so badly never being able to be in Mia's life as she was growing up that she never allowed herself to think about it too much, and when they finally were reunited, Clarisse believed that there was no reason to talk about it since Mia now knew the truth. She'd believed that Mia learning the reason for their absence throughout her childhood had magically made everything okay. Clarisse was now ashamed to realize that she'd never once taken the time to really think about the kind of damaging psychological impact something like that would have had on Mia. She was even more ashamed to realize just how right Mia was: Clarisse had always known that her granddaughter struggled with a low self-esteem, but as a grandma, she really hadn't done anything to help her with that. She'd just put all the expectations of an entire country on her shoulders and spent most of the time dealing with Mia as the Queen and not as Grandma. To say the least, reading that mind-blowing, eye-opening diary entry was quite a blow to Clarisse. In that moment, she vowed to herself that things between her and her granddaughter would change and that from now on, she would be the supportive kind of grandma Mia really needed. And above all else, she would help her granddaughter to finally see that she was not flawed.
Once again, the queen and the grandma battled it out, and even though the grandma side of Clarisse knew that she really should stop reading now, she was anxious to see how Mia was doing inside. She was anxious to find out if Mia was doing any better inside at all since the last entry she just read, so she turned to one of Mia's more recent entries. It said:
Dear Diary,
Since I first decided to agree to an arranged marriage and become Queen all those months ago, it has been a crazy, wild, insane journey, and it just keeps getting crazier and crazier. I got some life-changing news today. For over the past year, I've had this weird bleeding that literally never shuts off. I am literally bleeding around-the-clock and I have been for ages. Nobody knows about it except my assistant Marjorie, and I never would have told her except for the fact that a queen can hardly drive into a nearby store and buy tampons for herself. I obviously couldn't tell just anybody on the palace staff that I need a constant supply of tampons because if I were to tell the wrong person, the entire palace would know my personal business in no time! Thankfully, Marjorie has always taken care of this issue for me AND she has always kept her mouth shut. Anyway, after a lot of sweet nagging from Marjorie, I finally talked to Dr. Hart about it after Grandma and Grandpa were done with their appointment with her the other day, and she ran a bunch of tests. As it turns out, I actually have uterine cancer. Yep. That's right. Cancer. The Big "C." CANCER! To say the VERY least, I am still in COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHOCK.
Dr. Hart did an MRI and CT scan of my uterus and she told me afterwards that she performed the scans because uterine cancer sometimes shows up on scans when it's in the later stages. My scans didn't show anything, so Dr. Hart believes my cancer is still in the early stages, even though she can't say for certain. She won't know more about how advanced my cancer is until she performs – get this – a hysterectomy. As if the news couldn't get ANY worse! She says that in order to treat my cancer, basically, I have to have a hysterectomy. Only AFTER she performs it will she be able to tell for certain what stage my cancer is at and if I'll need other treatment after surgery, like radiation or something. She doesn't think it's very likely that I'll need chemo, but even THAT is also a possibility. YIKES! I know Dr. Hart said it wasn't LIKELY that I would need chemotherapy, but still, the fact that it's even POSSIBLE that I will TOTALLY freaks me out! I keep thinking about all the people I've seen with cancer who have bald heads and I keep wondering, "Is that going to be me now? Am I going to be one of those people who's always throwing up and bald? Am I going to be all sick and in pain and dying in a hospital bed eventually because of this?" Dying. DYING! Cancer. Hysterectomy. Chemotherapy. Radiation. CANCER! Those words just keep repeating themselves over and over again in my mind. I know, I know. I need to get a-hold of myself and just chill. I know freaking out and panicking won't do me any good, but it is SO hard not to!
And the hardest part is not knowing how to deal with all of this as a queen. I am the leader of an entire COUNTRY now. As terrified as I am, I cannot just think about myself. I have to think about Genovia. I also have to think about my grandparents. I am DEFINITELY putting off talking to them about this for as long as I possibly can. They're going through enough with their pregnancy already. They do NOT need to know that I have cancer. And as Queen, I have other big worries, like what do I do about a royal heir? I am the ONLY grandchild of King Rupert and Queen Clarisse. After me, there is literally NO ONE ELSE who can continue the royal Renaldi line. If I were just a regular woman, I guess I could go ahead and get the hysterectomy and adopt children later on in my life – even though the thought of never being able to carry my own baby really does break my heart. However, speaking as the Queen of Genovia, an adopted child cannot legally inherit the throne. If I'm going to keep our family's royal legacy going for another generation and keep the crown in our family, then I have to get pregnant and have a biological child. Kind of hard to do that after a hysterectomy! ARGH! THIS IS SUCH A MESS! THIS IS SO CONFUSING! What do I do?
Clarisse Renaldi was always a very tough lady, but when she read that entry in Mia's diary just now, she was in tears. She was both scared down to the bone and completely devastated. Cancer. Cancer! Her little granddaughter had just been diagnosed with cancer! This time, not even the queen in her objected when she turned the page to read Mia's most recent diary entry:
Dear Diary,
Well, I'm making A LITTLE more headway into dealing with this UNBELIEVABLE MESS I'm in. I've spoken with Dr. Hart again and while she's made it quite clear that she does NOT agree with my decision, she's put me on a kind of medication called progestin, which is made from the female hormone progesterone, in the hopes that it will keep my cancer from progressing while I attempt to get pregnant. Yep. That's right. Pregnant! I'm going to see one of the most renowned fertility specialists in the WORLD, Dr. Daniel Hughes, who works in a clinic in Switzerland, and I'm going to talk to him about getting pregnant as soon as possible. Pregnant! It's nuts, but in order to keep the crown in my family, it looks like I have little choice now but to get pregnant just as soon as I can. Obviously, time is of the essence because of my cancer. I have to get pregnant and pop out a royal heir as quickly as I can before my cancer gets any worse.
Arranged marriages. Royal engagements. And now, sudden pregnancies with a sperm donor involving artificial insemination, possible in vitro fertilization cycles and Lord knows what else. Being a queen REALLY wreaks havoc on a girl's personal life and decisions! I always thought I would be the person to make these kinds of decisions when I was growing up, but being a Genovian royal means that my POSITION is making these choices for me. It is truly insane.
However, I don't regret my recent decision to try and get pregnant ASAP. I understand how important this is to my family, and to Genovia, and I can't – I WON'T – let them down. I won't let uterine cancer get in the way of me fulfilling my duties as Queen, or as a daughter and granddaughter. I WILL keep our family's legacy going. I won't fail Dad, and I WILL NOT fail Grandma. I know they're depending on me. I may make some embarrassing mistakes sometimes and I may have my flaws as a royal, but I WILL do right by the people I love.
I'm scared, though. I am SO scared. What if my cancer prevents me from getting pregnant at all, despite all the extra help I'll be getting from fertility specialists like Dr. Hughes? And the biggie, what if after my child is born, I find that my cancer has gotten WAY worse? How will I take care of a child AND a country then? And then let's not forget the REAL biggie: WHAT IF I DIE? What if my cancer ends up killing me before my future child is grown and can ascend the throne? What'll happen to my child? To my country?
I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that I AM Clarisse Renaldi's granddaughter. This is a woman who courageously kept going and kept running her country single-handedly even AFTER she went through the loss of a child. She is the toughest, strongest woman I have EVER known, and I just have to remember that I have HER blood running through my veins. Jesus wouldn't have put me on the throne of Genovia if He didn't think I could be as tough as she is. I know that. I can do this. I just have to keep telling that to myself whenever I start to freak out. I can do this. I can do this. I CAN do this, and I WILL do this.
Joseph did some investigating for the next half hour or so and he found out some relevant, interesting information. He eventually cajoled it out of Marjorie about Mia's doctor visits with Dr. Hart and her scans at the hospital, as well as the fact that Mia had had her do research on fertility specialists and that for some unknown reason, she was going to see one in Switzerland. After he found out about all that from Marjorie, he went upstairs to his and Clarisse's suite – where he found her sitting on the couch, in tears, holding Mia's diary.
"Clarisse, what is it? What's wrong?" he asked worriedly, and he was even more worried when he saw that Clarisse was so upset, she couldn't even answer him. She simply handed him Mia's diary. Under normal circumstances, of course, Joseph would never read about Mia's most private thoughts, but in order to get to the bottom of whatever it was that had Clarisse so upset, he knew he didn't have any choice.
"Oh, dear Lord," he gasped a few moments later. "Cancer."
"And that's not all," Clarisse finally said when she noticed that he still hadn't ready Mia's latest entry. "Read the last one."
After Joseph read the last entry, everything fell right into place and made perfect sense. "So that's why she's going to Switzerland," he said quietly.
"Oh Joseph, we have to stop her. We can't let her go through with this. We can't let her put the hysterectomy off. We have to get this cancer out of her now!"
Joseph put his arm around Clarisse's shoulders then, kissed her, and held her close. Then he said, "I know, sweetheart. I know. I know we do. Don't worry. Don't worry. We'll talk to her. I'll talk to her. I'll get her to see reason. I'll get through to her. I promise. It'll be okay. We'll get her through this."
"I don't think I've ever been this scared before in my entire life. I'll die if anything happens to our little girl, Joseph," Clarisse said just before she broke down into sobs.
"Shh," he whispered lovingly, and then he began to rock her. "Shh. It's okay, my love. It's going to be okay. Shh." Joseph tried his best to comfort his wife, but he wasn't sure if he was being very helpful or not because truly, he was every bit as scared as Clarisse was.