A.N. Hi everyone! This is the story of Pepper's background, and I hope you like it. It is very emotion and feature some dark themes, so be warned. To continue the story, please read my main saga "Painful bonding." Next is Molly so look forward to that!
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"I do."
Julia said those words earnestly and honestly, intending to dedicate her entire life to Robert. They were ready to move in together, have kids, and grow old. Everything was in line and going well, and she was excited.
Julia was Italian, but Robert was a long-time New Yorker. They were married in a Catholic church, a requirement for Julia's family to show up, and moved together into their new apartment in Brooklyn.
…
Robert Wells was a factory laborer, and was very hard working. He and Julia met one day at the market, and instantly fell in love. Robert was handsome and charming, and Julia was beautiful and kind. But Robert was not a very wealthy man, and struggled to provide for himself, and Julia was very young when they met, so their marriage was very controversial.
"You can't marry this Yankee, Julia! It is against our wishes." roared Julia's father.
"I can marry who I want!" retorted Julia.
Their love was far stronger than any love that her family could understand. It pervaded her life and filled her heart.
She ran away from home and found Robert at his home on Bedford Ave. Crying, she ran into his room and fell into his arms.
"I don't care what anyone says honey." Robert assured her. "I will be with you as long as I live."
Julia moved in with him that night, and never turned back. She was going to be with her love forever.
…
"This is nice…" optimistically said Julia as she walked in their new apartment in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. "I just thought that it would be bigger."
"It's the best we could afford darling." Robert made known in an apologetic tone. He tried to find the nicest place to move his new wife into, because he knew that was the least she deserved. But he also knew that being together in this confusing world was all that they really needed.
Settling in seemed hard at first, but it worked out. Robert worked very hard to fix up their apartment and make enough money to provide for them. When enough money was saved, they went to the movies or the club and had fun. But most of their free time they spent in the park, sharing stories of their love and thoughts of their future.
One plan came to be. In the winter of 1918, Julia gave birth to a girl. She was pretty, with dark brown hair and eyes, and she had a beautiful smile. But Julia and Robert could not decide on a name for the baby. They thought of naming her Samantha, Geraldine, and Rose, but they could not settle on one.
Julia took loving care of the baby, and nurtured her the best she could. All she wanted was to give the best to her firstborn daughter. But the baby was not easy to take care of. She was mean at times, and she cried every minute. This went beyond average infant behavior, she was just unreasonably aggressive.
From the beginning, the baby would cry, and the only way to make her stop would be for Julia to hold her for a very long time. And she usually frowned, whether she was happy or sad.
"She sure is Peppery." said Robert one day.
"Say, that is a swell name for her wouldn't you say?" suggested Julia.
And that was how Pepper got her name. She was the most Peppery girl in town, and lived up to her name through her demeanor. As a toddler, she spent almost all of her time with her mother, because Robert was always working, and she grew a very intense bond with her. She cried whenever she was taken away from Julia, and they became one and the same.
When Pepper was old enough to meet other girls, she became bossy and rude. She would take other girls toys and be very controlling. Once, she was playing tag with a group of girls, and started to kick the other girls instead of tagging them, and so they broke away from her. This made her very unlikable, and she ended up not having any friends at all, and so she spent more time alone with her mother.
But all this was out of her control, and that was what made her the most frustrated. She wanted to have friends, but she couldn't help how she acted, and that she needed to control her situation all the time. A lot of it came from her anxiety, and a fear of doing new things or meeting new people. These issues would soon be made worse.
…
As Robert came home from work day to day, he began to be more irritable. He showed signs of depression, and stayed in his room all of the time. Julia was worried, because she loved him and she wanted to make him feel better.
"Robert, what's wrong. You've been acting so differently recently."
"It's the nerves, honey, i'm fine. Work just gets to me."
This went on and on, and Julia was concerned as she had to take on more and more duties in the family to make up for her husband's behavior.
Then Julia gave birth to another child. They named her Caroline, after her grandmother, and welcomed her into the family. But Pepper did not like her. She became more and more misbehaved after Caroline was born, because she was jealous of the attention that Carolline was taking away from her.
This was coupled with fights and drama between Robert and Julia. Robert was becoming mean, and to an extent, quite incapacitated. He couldn't function in a public space without getting distracted and leaving, and he would get lost. When Julia would confront him about this, he would get angry and hit her. This was the first time he ever did this, and it was a far away possibility when they were first married.
Soon, Robert was fired. His slow descent into madness had messed him up at the factory and caused a fire. He was fined $100 and lost his job. He literally gave up after that.
As Pepper and Caroline were playing with blocks in the apartment living room, and Julia was preparing dinner, Robert came home. He was intoxicated, and had a dead look in his eyes, as if it had been his hundredth day in a mental asylum. Slowly walking into the room, he took a swig of bootleg beer, and looked out of his 5th story window. It was a long way down to the sidewalk below, but he didn't see it that way. He saw it as a way to free himself from the cruelties of his life and the stress of his family. Taking another long drink of his alcohol. He opened the window.
There was a scream, and then there was a crash, and at the bottom of the brownstone apartment building lay the deceased body of Robert Wells.
…
Julia was a wreck. The love of her life had gone insane and killed himself, abandoning her and their children in a fit of depression and mental ineptitude. After the event, she cried and cried tremendously, and cursed him for his betrayal. For what felt like years, she organized a funeral and a burial service for her departed husband, and resumed her life as a changed widow. But things were not the same. She felt a sense of loneliness, and had no friends, and she had no job. All she had were two children whom she loved but had no means to take care of.
And Pepper, she saw something that a child should never have to see. Her innocence was removed as she saw her once loving father descent down that apartment building. It changed her.
As the days went on, the troubles mounted. The food was gone and the rent was due. Julia took up a job mending clothes that clients sent in to have repaired, but the money was just enough to get by.
"Mama, I'm hungry." shouted Pepper as she stamped her foot on the ground.
Julia ignored her cries, and looked away, continuing to sew her piece.
It wasn't very long though, that the neglectful mother began to neglect her work. So overcome with grief, depression and anxiety, she abandoned her only means of support and spent the days lying in bed. Sometimes she cried, other times she was silent, but at no time did she take care of her daughters.
Caroline was still a baby, and the minimal attention given to the children was given to her, but that meant that Pepper was left in the dust. At first she was whiny and threw tantrums, but when that didn't get her mother's love, she just resigned to a state of hunger, loneliness and isolation. She went days without food, and she never went outside and she never saw anyone. This total reclusion led her anxiety and anger to grow to extreme levels. She became depressed, and spent most of her time crying. All she wanted was to be loved, but the only people who would were either dead or had effectively abandoned her.
This went by for months, until Julia ran out of money and the landlord came to evict her. What he found shocked him. A sulky mother with a tiny baby in her arms, and a thin, teary eyed little girl in the corner. Instead of evicting them all and putting them out on the street, he reported Julia to the police for child abuse.
…
Julia was furious. She fought and fought to keep her children, but when the authorities investigated, they found such serious and intense neglect, that they made sure that she could not take care of her children again. Pepper and Caroline were sent to an orphanage where they would be clothed and fed and taken care of, but not where they would be loved. They were separated and sent to different institutions, and Pepper never heard from Caroline again.
Months later, Pepper received news that Julia had contracted the Spanish Flu and died, finally making her an orphan. She was sad, but she felt that she had already been an orphan deep down since her father had died.
…
At the orphanage, Pepper was alone. From the moment the traumatized child entered into the cold, unwelcoming building, she knew things were not going to get better.
"Another rat!" Sneered Miss Hannigan as she first saw Pepper, who was dirty and unwashed, and trying to hold back tears of fear and sadness. "Looks like the worst one so far! Get in here and stop your crying!"
Miss Hannigan locked Pepper into a big, dark room all by herself. The blankets were thin and scratchy, and hadn't been washed in years. There was no source of heat, and the winter air came through the weak glass that was broken in many places. There was nothing to do in the room, nothing for a little girl to play with, so Pepper spent hours lying in her hard, uncomfortable, gross bed crying, letting her emotions break open and spill out.
When it was finally time to meet other girls for dinner, she was just as terrified. Being stuck inside her cramped apartment for years with no outside interaction left her devoid of social skills. She sat by herself at a table in the corner and ate her cold mush. When the chance finally came to have fun and play, a group of girls her age approached her and asked if she wanted to play ball.
Pepper was like a frightened little kitten, and did not have a clue how to respond.
"NO!" she screamed, and ran past the girls, pushing them out of her way as she made her way to her room.
This and other events made her unpopular and bullied at the orphanage, and whenever girls saw her they would avoid her and make fun of her. This made Pepper mean and a bully herself, and would hurt younger girls if they got on her nerves. It was not right, but it was her only way to cope with her life of loneliness and pain. She had no friends and no one to get help from or lean on.
Then one day, after months of social seclusion and being in her room all alone, suffering, she heard her door open and saw a girl thrown in by Miss Hannigan. The girl was crying terribly, and Pepper did not know what to do. But all she knew was that she wanted to make her stop, the first time she ever had that feeling. She instilled a new emotion in Pepper, and that was the feeling of empathy. The girl's name was Kate, and she would make all the difference in Pepper's poor life.