It's Brittany, Bitch | Ερις (eristic) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2011-08-12 23:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | eris |
narrative: and I never wanted anything from you
Who: Charlie
What: Some unexpected and upsetting news.
Where: The mailbox, then her apartment.
When: 8/10/11, 10:32 pm
Warnings: None (shocking ikr?)
To say that Charlie never thought of her mother throughout the years would be an out right lie. But she didn't think of her often, nor sparingly - the number of times would probably be comfortably in the median range, just enough to make her a little more than a vague memory. Most of the thoughts were mere speculation, the general questions of "why" and "how", followed by building fantasies of what Madeleine was doing now.
They ranged from the elaborate (circus ringleader, sky-diver, and FBI agent, all of which were sustained within believeability easily when Charlie was younger) toward the more mundane (lawyer, vet, hospice worker), and each tried to place what kind of person her mother had been. All she was left with was a kind voice that was often strained, and Charlie believed that was because she herself was doing something to upset her mother. Steven, her father, was always more than eager to fill in the blanks with his own alcoholic descriptions, and thus Charlie was less inclined to believe him.
She could picture her mother, though sometimes she wondered just how much she was actually remembering and how much she was making up in her mind. She had her mother's hair and eyes, or so she'd been told often, but the rest of her was much more like her father, so even looking in the mirror gave no real proof or example of who Madeleine was or could have been.
And so when Charlie proceeded to her mailbox after taking Jack for an extremely late night stroll - she'd gotten in late from her shift, though was not at all annoyed with the strange hours her patrols took, instead enjoying the variety it offered - she was not expecting the large, off-white envelope that bore her full name (Charlotte Fairica, Apt 103, Pax Letale, Newport Beach, CA) with a return address of a lawyer, along with a small box. She was fairly certain that she hadn't pissed anyone off lately, not to the point of a lawsuit, though she'd danced dangerously close to such things in the past.
Brow furrowed, she flipped it over in her hands while Jack waited patiently by her feet, his brush of a tail sweeping back and forth over the tile in anticipation of whatever might happen next. Sliding a finger into the barely open space between the seal and the start of the envelope, Charlie ripped it open easily and slid out the documents held within. And there were quite a few - it was a packet, and the topmost page was a letter, typed up and printed out, but hand signed by whoever had composed it. She quickly began to skim the lines, and then a phrase jumped out that made her knees buckle. Charlie had to lean forward, quickly, using one hand to steady herself on the wall, reading the phrase again in order to be sure that she hadn't somehow made it up in her mind.
....we regret to inform you that...Madeleine....died in a car accident...
Was this the way the world worked for everyone? It felt like she couldn't turn around without something delivering an uppercut to her jaw, leaving her speechless and feeling alone. Tears pricked at her eyes, though she had no idea why that should be so - the woman had so readily abandoned her, after all, leaving her with a broken man who could barely take care of himself let alone his own daughter. Not a word, a letter, or even a photo to say where she'd gone off to, what she had been doing with her life.
But still a pain squeezed her heart, the irrevocable loss of something that could never be, and now certainly never would because nothing between Heaven or Hell could bring back the dead, no matter what amount of wishing one might heap upon the desire. In her mind she tried to bring up excuses; simply a matter of time, really, or maybe it happened sooner and the date here was wrong, and it had taken some time before the legal team had been able to track her down. That idea didn't hold too much water, the military was bad at letting its own know up from down, but they were organized in a million other ways. Charlie swallowed, and continued reading. Maybe there had been some kernel of guilt left in her mother, because she was being left a tidy sum along with a few possessions. The box held what the lawyers considered the most important, and Charlie pulled it out with shaking fingers, collecting the remainder of her mail and shutting the box with a too harsh slam.
Retreating to her apartment, she carefully locked everything she could - deadbolt, knob, chain - as though she were keeping secrets within the small rental space. Letting Jack off of his lead, the dog remained near to her side, always keen in anticipating her strange mood swings, and it seemed that, at the moment, he could sense her need for quiet support. He pressed his cold, wet nose into her hip while her fingers unconsciously scratched between his ears, the rough fur familiar and comforting. Charlie turned her attention to the box - it was small, brown, and sealed with so much tape that eventually she had to get a serrated knife in order to saw open at least a portion of it. She tried to do so carefully, though such motions were difficult for her, but eventually she saw it open. Out poured a small pool of silver onto the countertop, a locket attached to a long chain.
Charlie had never been much of a girly girl, and had no use for jewelry, but Madeleine had been of a different sort. The metal was obviously often handled, smooth to the touch and engraved with simple and elegant designs. For a moment Charlie simply held it, feeling the weight, before she attempted to pop it open - which she did so with ease, revealing two photographs within. One was easily placed: her, at age three, for once looking at the camera and smiling. She was wearing a dress, something that never happened often nor easily, but something Madeleine had insisted on for the first few years. Before tantrums and mud-soaked skirts had ended the arguments completely.
The other picture, though, was a puzzle. It was of a young child, a little boy, wearing overalls and with a thick mop of curls falling over his forehead. He was grinning widely and happily, hands proffering a toy car with pride. Charlie tried to wrack her brain, to place who that was - maybe her father? But this boy looked nothing like Steven, and Charlie couldn't fathom why her mother would hold on to such a young picture of her left behind husband. After another few moments of ponderous thought, Charlie put the locket back in the box, and hid it away from sight in a drawer in her kitchen. She'd worry about it later - like she did with all problems, she'd leave it until the last possible second, when she was forced to deal with it. For now, she simply wanted to forget.