But This is Not My Child

Photo by Fillipe Gomes from Pexels

I could never tell a single soul how I really feel about the girl-child. She is not of me. She is my husband’s child. And she is damaged. 

The house is not my own. She is the queen of this castle, setting the tempo for the day depending on the mood she wakes up in. 

From 6:00 in the morning I can hear her moans and affectations. Already I am tense by the time I am in the breakfast room. And then she meanders out with her nurse. The nurse that costs as much as that vacation I wanted to take last year, or twice as much as the repairs I wanted to make at our apartment in the city.

Already my husband’s expression turns into one of guilty pity- trying to take away the slight this world gave her with his smile. He ends up looking like a slow water buffalo. I look over at him in disgust. When the girl-child is around I always seem to despise my husband. For burdening me with this girl-child I didn’t even birth.

She is so big. She takes up every bit of space. Sucking the sunshine from the room into her black hole. Converting the light into malice. She scrapes the chair back and all I can see is scratches forming on the wooden floor. Her face is set up like a thousand hurricanes and she immediately tears into the toast like a wild dog.

I swear she keeps me thin by making me lose my appetite.

I always knew about her. After all it was I that married into her family. But at 6 every little girl is cute and the  threats of her illness were cancelled out by the beauty of her youth. But now she is 24 and there is no beauty left- just an ugly picked at scar of a girl-child. 

My husband and his first wife adopted her. The first wife has abandoned them both. She was brave- willing to shoulder the shame of a mother leaving her broken girl-child in exchange for a life free of insanity. I tried my best with the girl-child at the beginning but her default position was always to go back to difficult. She was purposely difficult, blaming all of us normal people for the illness that has befallen her. I would make faces behind her back that no one but me could see. But I just had to get it out or the resentment towards my husband would be absolute. 

I tried with her until I realized neither of our hearts were in it. She needed a mother and all 3 of the ladies in her life had abandoned her. 

She’s spilt half the milk on the table. We try to engage her in conversation with the strained faces of startled cats. And then just as soon as it began it is over. She announces at the breakfast table that she ‘needs a shit’. I take a sip of my orange juice to prevent myself from screaming at her for how much her presence offends me.

It is Saturday. Just one more day at the mercy of the girl-child of the Manor before I head back to the apartment in the city.

An apartment of new views, or gardens or cool wind  but where the air is still less heavy and oppressive than when she is around.

Oh girl-child I wish I could feel some kind of love for you but I just can’t. People would hate me if they knew, but I just can’t. You have made me a prisoner in my own home. How can I not resent you?