To belong. Oh, to belong. She was not barren enough to attest no friends, but she was fallen enough to understand the indifference of family. Oh, Deirdre was welcomed yes, though not wanted. They were courteous, only because relations are expected to be. She was accepted like a highschool class accepts a retarded child. They don't want him. They'd rather him dead. But no one says a word for that is far too cruel. I should be kinder and more understanding, she reasoned. Alright, she was wanted, she would be missed, but she was replaceable. Deirdre knew she contributed really nothing, just another face in the crowd. At the table. Addictions fill that table where the family used to sit and conversate to the sound of a record player with its jumping needle and the lights that grow dimmer with time. Yes, the lights had grown dim, so dim that not one would notice if a stranger's face replaced her own.
That Thanksgiving morning, she had awaken uncharacteristically early, and determined to scribe every aspect of life and humanity and the day she had witnessed. So far, her best friends were the only ones on the list. Two. Adelaide.
“Adelaide, where are you?!” she screamed in her sleep. No, calm calm calm calm yourself when life grows weary. Calm calm calm calm yourself, when worry scares you. Calm calm calm calm yourself, because I will be here or there. In a fit of hysteria she tried to awake. “No! No you are not here! No one I love is here! Only me, this disgusting pitiful wretch!” Fighting sheets that were not present, she could not break the coma's hold. It always fulfilled several torturous accusations before allowing her eyes to open.
Thanksgiving day. 2009.
She drove herself the too-short-half-hour to her Aunt's house in the country. Better that way than fearing her father the entire drive. She smiled at everyone, like an accomplished actress who smiles and waves at her spectators. That is what Deirdre felt like. Only a plaything to be viewed by many spectators. It was an apathetic peace. She'd drink it in rather than ache any day. That is, until father arrived.
She never understood why he said what he did. He preferred sharp words over kind ones. They were his weapon of choice. It was once said, that a coward kills with kisses. Her father was no coward. Unless you consider one a coward that kills those who cannot defend themselves. In that case, her father was a coward, and she despised him for it. How was it possible to despise and yet love? She loved him to her core, loved the way he protected her when he wanted to, loved the way he tried so hard to bring her again to God. But despised him for his disregard for any ones heart and mind than his own. He made her cry that day, with the first words he said he made her cry. She didn't care to recollect them. What infuriated her was the fact that as soon as it was over he pretended all to be sunshine. She feared him, even in his joyous moods.
Only a few minutes later, he asked her if she were ill. “No.” He jerked around, only to pick up a napkin, but she thought him furious for not addressing her properly. “I mean no sir!” she chocked out, fearing being lashed out in public. He did not hear her. Or did not acknowledge her, for he trod away and she ate with her grandmother in the other room.
They were truly the ones no one wanted. Though grandmother be wild and rambunctious, and Deirdre reticent and disengaged, they were together unacceptable.
The events of that day were blurred. She had recent told a friend that Thanksgiving is characterized by eating ones self into oblivion, and hence not realizing any distinct events that commenced, therefore a fuzzy distinct Thanksgiving expectation. This was no different, for she could not remember many transitioned events, only the ones that cut the deepest. Like the baby.
Oh yes, the baby. The little crying black haired baby that was shoved into her hands to do something with it. Feeling no paternal instinct whatsoever for this crying thing, she held it in her arms and carried it outside into the frosty air. She sat down and began to sing songs. The baby surely could not distinguish the joyous from the miserable, so she sang the only songs she knew. Sad songs. The dear seemed so peaceful, that by the moments it became more and more placid, until its little blue eyelids sank down. Perhaps from an angry thought, or the realization that this woman holding her was not a soft mother, but a monster with a mane, claws, and putrid teeth, the baby started, and began to sob. To no avail Deirdre tried to comfort it, until at last she carried it inside to its mother. It broke her heart, but she feigned slight irritation. That baby was the wiser of them all.
With memory of that realization almost two months ago, she woke up, sweating terribly despite the icy cold, and held her stomach with the pain.
To belong. Oh, to belong....
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