Anne Shirley Blythe-
I am overjoyed that you enjoyed the look into Ken and his family in Toronto, I truly felt like it was needed to give shape to this story and make it worth the agony I have written. But you are correct that that these things didn't always have good outcomes for the women who suffered. Given Leslies history and what not there is alot of similarities and even while Ken didn't know everything and still doesn't. I think it does make it more realistic. I hope anyway!
I am slowly trying to work away from Rilla's episodes, I can't believe anyone would want to keep reading them and as she is waking up, and the fog is dissapating around her, that instinct to panic or freak out is slowly being taken over by anger and rage in many ways.
As for her siblings, I am glad that everyone understood the letter for what they were intended for, they aren't perfect, and Di is extremely callous and unthinking but she would have so out of her depth, as Nan said alot of things are need to know basis. So what Nan knows, Di might not, while Walter is dealing with multiple things, and Jem is just himself and being supportive as he can from where he is, such a brother thing to say, make work for your affections. But you are correct in her letters to Ken, you see parts of Rilla before the attack, her vanity etc. Parts of her come out when she is writing, and her writing is also a replacement for her diary at the moment.
MB-
I hope you are enjoyting this and that you Chapter five didn't change your mind about the story!
Minnie Anderson(to whom she asked to be called) was a nice woman, all in all, she thanked profusely every time Rilla came over. With baskets of food from Susan and little things for the baby, Rilla tidied up and helped her finish the small quilt before autumn set in. She didn't even mind that occasionally Monday begged to come along for the walk and trotted beside her and then laid by the door until Rilla was ready to leave. She mainly talked nonstop about things that were neither of the war nor the glen gossip. Books, as she loved to read, music and loved to sing tunes as she began to creep about the house more and more.
It was oddly comforting to Rilla who was tired of the war, and even hearing the Mother gush about her baby didn't seem as annoying as it used to be. At two months old, Little Jims was growing steadily, but still had no hair and was quite a bald little man.
For the most part, Rilla managed to keep her own circumstances hidden well enough. She came in the afternoons when her nausea was better and kept away from things that bothered her. This time her father had dropped her off that morning, as he was passing by and her ever-revolving nausea showed itself at the little threadbare house. It only took one look and Minnie knew and was up out of bed reaching for the waste can.
"Oh you poor thing, circumstances indeed," she said rubbing the younger girl's back. Rilla looked at the older woman afraid of her reaction to her secret. Even in her gingham day dress and long red braid, she looked afraid of the answer she didn't want to give.
"It is never kind of men when they take what they want without thought of the other person." She says. "Or you try to tell them it's not a good time and they take it so personally. You're a man though, he has to be good if you're here helping me day in and day out?"
"He's in Toronto finishing up school," Rilla says quietly. "I think Father wanted me to get used to babies. I don't like them, and he often calls me his Lily of the field, because I didn't want to go to Queens and just stayed at home."
"Well, that explains a bit more, but also that must be lonely not having him around?" Minnie says humming. "I didn't want to pry of course, but this makes more sense of why a young girl your age would be married, though part of me wonders if it wouldn't be kinder to let you do away with it all and come back home with a fresh start. I didn't think the doctor was the type to make you keep the child.
Rilla mainly shrugs her thin shoulder. "No one is forcing me to do anything, but..Ken married me. It would be strange to give it away or send it home when someone married me to protect me and it?"
"Married or not, you are fifteen you shouldn't have to keep a child that torments you."
"But it's innocent of everything? Why should it suffer a life of hardship because I couldn't be brave enough to care for it?" Rilla repeats all she has heard. She still doesn't call it a baby, a child. A parasite, an alien within her, it wasn't a baby to her, it was a reminder, a traitor that was using her as a host.
"Being brave and potentially looking into the face of the man who forced himself into you for the rest of your life is far from the same thing?" Minnie doubles down.
"Men," Rilla whispers for the first time. "There were two of them."
"Jesus Christ, do your parents know this?" Minnie exclaims and Rilla can only look at her. She never specifically voiced the attack. Whatever her parents thought…it was from bits and pieces they put together themselves. They knew there were two of them, that one held her down… whatever else they imagined, that was on their own conscious.
"I don't like talking about it," Rilla says quietly through her teeth. Who was this woman to question her life, but the ounce of courage that took made her friend frown from her bed?
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried. You do enough for me and Jims, it wasn't my place," Minnie says quietly.
"It's all right," Rilla says sighing sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I just…it's all overwhelming to think about. It only makes the nightmares worse and when the nightmares get worse. Father makes me sleep with medicine and I don't like that because it doesn't stop it and I just wake up groggier than if I didn't sleep at all. The last time I slept was when Ken was here"
"What about Ken?" Minnie asks looking at her curiously.
"What about him?" Rilla asks unsure of the question.
"What is he like? Is he handsome?" Minnie asks like a schoolgirl. "A pretty girl like you, he must be handsome?"
"He's….he's handsome I suppose?" Rilla blushes. "He's Ken, I've known him my whole life, the Fords are family friends. He sacrificed his future for mine and I don't know how I can ever repay him for that." Rilla digs out the compact from her pocket and opens and shows the older woman her wedding photo, and another old photo she stole from an album from her mother's collection.
"He is handsome that is for sure, but men don't do things like getting married without wanting to get married," Minnie tells her. "So he must be a good man."
But am I good enough for him? This is what Rilla means to say as the infant cries out from his cradle.
"Will you pass me him?" Minnie says already getting reading to feed her son. Rilla has seen mothers nurse their children before in the shadows of Sunday church picnics and the past weeks. But she never paid close attention to it, of course. But still, she looks at the infant, gathering up the courage to pick up the small child. She still holds it like it is hot coal or something that makes her extremely uncomfortable. Minnie just smiles at her and takes the offered child. She is used to Rilla's uncertainty with her son and finds it oddly endearing how the young girl managed her time here. She can barely recall how many times the young girl willingly held her child for just holding him, most likely because she avoided it at all costs.
"Can I ask?" Rilla contemplates for a moment. "Never mind."
"You can ask me anything, and if you were going to ask if nursing hurts, I won't lie it's not always pleasant." The young mother explains. "Your parents have explained have they not?"
"They try, and Father has books," Rilla says quietly not sure how to explain the avoidance of the topic. "Mother does try but I usually don't want to speak of it and go to lie down. The more I think about it the more angry I am?"
"Of course you are!" Minnie exclaims reaching for her enough to disrupt her baby. "What happened, what I heard happen—anyone has a right to be angry at the world. They took advantage, and took everything a woman holds dear without permission."
"So I have been told," Rilla says sighing.
Minnie finishes her feeding and pats him on the back until he burps loudly. She lays him in his basket, as she adjusts herself and goes too quietly to the small bathroom.
Rilla looks at the infant unsure of what to do at the moment, he looks back at her with big dark eyes. He yawns arms waving as he stretches in his white nighty, his rosebud lips curl upwards at her, giving her a gummy smile. Her heart melted for a moment before she heard a wet-sounding rumble from the infant.
"Really!" She exclaims in disgust and Minnie burst out laughing who had heard it. "You just had a bath!"
"Just like his father," Minnie says with a sigh.
"Have you heard from him at all?" Rilla asks curiously.
"I got a letter the other day, he's proud to have a son and glad that I have survived," Minnie says simply picking up her son sniffing him and shaking her head. She changes the infant and tosses the flannel into the bucket. Another lady comes to wash those for her a few times a week. Rilla just kept the house tidy, brought bread and baskets from Susan and kept her company. "It's nearing two, you should head home before your parents come looking for you?" Minnie says looking at the clock.
Rilla can only nod her head and gathers her coat and hat. She says goodbye to Minnie and looks at Little Jim who is eating his first happily.
She walks the familiar roads home, no one stops to nod their head to her, not the ladies anyway. No carriages ask her if she needs a lift to Ingleside because her father once sued their child or them in some way. Monday is at her ankles, doing his diligence at keeping her safe, and she did feel safer with him around her.
Ingleside is quiet when she returns home, Susan tells her that her parents went to the Manse but would be home for dinner. But she had mail, this was the most mail she had gotten ever in her life. Ken was always writing to her.
Though she paled at the return address. Persis, the sister in law she barely knows. Persis always hung out with Nan and Di, not her.
September 13th 1914
Rilla
It feels strange that you are my sister-in-law, yet still miles away. I try to think when I saw you last, as I have begged off the island in favour of being with friends the last times that my friends went.
You were still a little girl in drop-waisted dresses and curls. Now according to the photo, Mom has up on the mantle and the one Ken has in his room. You are more like your sisters and have outgrown your childish ways. Is your hair still red? Or has it darkened any?
When Ken told me about his offer I was shocked laughing at who would he marry. Why would he marry when he had girls waiting on him hand and foot last winter? I am horrified, Rilla truly I am and I understand it now. A few college freshmen have already disappeared after their men went to Val Cartier, I can only imagine the circumstances for them.
I don't know if you can make him stay Rilla, but if you can tell Ken not to go? Do you need him more here than others there? College knows enough about why he's there, but around the city, people give him looks. Once he got angry and showed off the ugly scar of his ankle from when they fixed it and said 'When I can manage to walk a few miles with pain or limping I will go, but right now this is keeping me around.'
I hope the baby will be a girl, I was looking through Eatons and Simpsons at all the little things—-
Rilla hastily backs up from the letter, panic rising inside of her.
She rushes to the washroom, heaving until whatever she ate that day was out of her stomach. She wanted to burn everything to the ground. She stands up cautiously and rinses out her mouth, Susan hasn't come so she most likely hasn't heard her.
She can't finish the letter, not right now, possibly not all. Not with Ken's telephone call from the other night still fresh in her head.
The telephone rings and Susan comes to tell her it is for her. Making her look at Susan in shock, because who would be calling her?
"Hello?"
"It's Kenneth…I got your letter and I needed to hear your voice. I needed to tell you that I am glad you were found."
"Kenneth," Rilla breathes. "This has to be costing you a tonne?"
"Father regularly calls New York," Ken says shrugging. "I just needed you to hear what I said, I know the lines aren't private, but I needed you to know that."
"All right," Rilla says quietly unsure of what to say, or what she said.
"You sound tired?" Ken notes trying to pinpoint her quietness.
"According to too many books fatigue is common, add on dreams anyone would be tired," Rilla tells him.
"Have you read anything else lately?" Ken nudges her. "Shakespeare, Austen?"
"Not really," Rilla says quietly sliding down into the chair by the telephone. The sound of his voice reminds her of crawling into the spare room's bed and that wash of safety around. Dog Monday comes trotting and sets himself at her feet and she shakes her head.
They talked until the operator says another call is trying to get through and they both have to hang up and Rilla sighs, wiping away straggling tears that seemed to have escaped.
She settles in the window seat in the hallway, her writing board on her lap with her pencils and erasers looking at her rings as she picks up the pencil once more and begins to write.
September 20th 1914
Kenneth
I just got back from Minnie's. Little Jims, smiled at me today and I was rather sweet of him before he decided to be a boy and let go of his wind.
Minnie thought she found out today, I was there early and still feeling nauseous and she worked it out all too quickly. She was horrified of course, and kept asking me things about you that won't leave my mind. So I will write them down.
How can you love something that you know is not yours, and on top of that is born of such an event? Honestly, I feel like I can't, I think about it and I want to cry, I can't. I can't do this. I can't love it like it deserves.
I've tried to be brave, I tried to believe that I could do this, and I tried to tell myself that it might change over time. But I can't forget and every passing day and week, every change in my body I want to crawl out of my skin. I can never forget where and how this thing came to be. It's my nightmares that never give me a moment of peace when the night is high in the sky.
I'm terrified, of this being in Hades forever without any sort of light to remind me that at least I am alive. The war is Hades himself stealing my brothers and friends who I love. While I sit holed up in my room, wondering what I did to deserve his wrath as well? Why did it happen? Why did they…why did they do this to me? Yet god tests my strength now asking if I am strong enough to love this…nightmare.
Can you love this alien that lives within me knowing where it came from? Truly. Could you look it in the eye and not be horrified? Can you introduce me and your friends back home one day and do it proudly? Do your friends even know? Do they know about me at all?
Do you wish I could write a letter that isn't me swimming in a river of the underworld? As I awake from this fog…I just feel hatred for everything. I just want it all to stop…to all be a dream that Hades isn't taking over my world piece by piece?
Not even little Jim's smile as he lay in his basket this afternoon could make me smile. I tried to wonder what it might be like…I tried to smile back at him and it was just an empty smile. I feel nothing but anger at the world, and I can't even smile at an innocent baby.
I just want to scream on a cliff and just…wake up from this nightmare I am in. I don't want to be treading water, drowning in the river of
We are supposed to go to Charlottetown this weekend for things. I do love shopping, so maybe this will be a nice trip for me, but also no one in Charlottetown knows me. Maybe it will lift my mood.
Also, it was nice to hear your voice this week, truly it was.
Your Rilla
I hope everyone enjoys this one and as usual comments and reviews are life itself and great appreciated!
Tina
