© 2002 by Sarah Ryniker JudgmentalMama@hotmail.com http://www.oocities.org/iamthealmightyrah/FF.html
STORY LAST UPDATED ON 17/08/2002
Rise from the Ashes Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oh, what a pity it was that such a joyful, life-filled person could go into such a depression. I watched her only joyous moments with Mitch be blinded by the loss of her child. Though she still found happiness in reading to him and doing things for him, it wasn't the same.
She even stopped talking to me. I saw her become more and more of a mess. I didn't feel the least bit sorry. But I was angered by the fact that she still got some joy. I became more obsessed with making Rachael miserable. I wanted her to not live. In fact, I wanted her completely, utterly gone from the world. I wanted her dead.
Of course, once more, I had nobody to tell this to. But the house seemed so much emptier with Karen and Michael gone. Though I held parties and such things and everyone seemed to have fun, it just felt different than it used to be. I could feel the coming of something big in the air surrounding me.
Then Gerald, just as I suspected, brought the truth upon my head one night. I was about to find out more of the reasons why he truly wed me. I knew he didn't love his wife so much that he would take her one dying wish and do it. It just wasn't like him.
We lay in bed that night. I hated lying next to him. He was so much older than me. He was also my uncle. And it truly disgusted me to be married to him. Yet, I had done just that. If I hadn't, I would have been thrown out to the streets, not a penny to my name. And I had become far too cosy to go back to that world. That, and how was I to destroy Rachael if I wasn't here?
Gerald turned to me and began to rub on my breasts. I cringed. "Must we, really? I absolutely can't stand having you in me." How calmly I could turn him down.
"Yes, we must. I want a son, damn you. And you're going to give me one." He rolled over on top of me.
"No! We're using protection. I don't want to have another child. I don't even like kids." I shoved at him, pushing him off of me.
"I don't give a damn about what you want, Ella. You are my wife, and you will give me a child," he declared.
"My mother gave you a child. It's not my fault, nor problem, that it wasn't the boy you wished it to be," I snapped haughtily.
His anger glowed red in his eyes. I wasn't in the least bit afraid of him, though his eyes warned me to be. I simply stared back, holding my ground. I didn't want his hands on me, much less that male part of him thrusting into me.
He suddenly grabbed my face with his hands. He turned me to face him and he kissed me. His tongue slid into my mouth and I bit it. He pulled back and slapped me. He shoved me back into the bed and rolled on top of me. I slapped, I moved, but no matter how conniving intelligent I was, I lacked in the strength to prevent him from taking exactly what he wanted. To feel him grunt and move above me made me sick. Yet, I didn't cry or scream. I fought, but quietly.
When it was over and he rolled off of me, both of us lay there silently. Finally, I spoke. Somehow, I knew that there were other reasons I was lying beside this man of my own blood.
"What are the real reasons, Gerald? Why did you marry me?" I knew he was too cold of a man to do what my mother's "last wishes" were. I believed they were her last wishes, but he had his own selfish reasons about doing it.
"I told you about your mother's wish, Ella," he said, turning his back to me and fluffing the pillow.
"You're lying! She may have said that, but you wouldn't do it. You didn't love her!" I screamed, propping myself up on one elbow.
"Go to sleep," he growled.
"No! I want the truth, you son of a bitch!" I hissed. I grabbed the flower vase next to my bed, aiming to whack him in the head with it.
He turned around to see me about to swing it down on his head and he halted it with his hand. "What do you think you're doing?" He towered over me as he ripped the vase from my fist.
"Tell me or I'll kill you." It wasn't an idle threat. I felt the need to spill his blood rushing through my body. Not poisoning him, but harming him physically.
He took me seriously and calmly placed the vase on his nightstand. Then he turned back to me. "I married you because you're young. You can give me a son. I want one before I die. I cannot give over the fortune to Michael, and Rachael doesn't want it."
"You have Carissa," I told him. "She is your child. Why don't you consider her that?"
"I cannot consider her my child because she is not. I want my own son before I die, my own child. I have none." He said it so sadly, trying to make me feel sorry for him. His words merely angered me more.
"Are you saying my mother is a whore?" I screamed at him. "Are you saying she cheated on you?"
"No, she wasn't a whore. But she didn't love me and had many affairs. Carissa is not my child," he insisted.
"You're lying! I saw that baby. You can't deny she is yours!" She had looked too much like him, too much like Rachael, his twin brother's own child. She was his. Then it hit me. "You don't want a girl so much that you will deny conceiving her?"
"Believe what you will, Ella. The fact is you will give me a child, no matter how badly you wish not to. You will." I had no choice then. And night after night, I didn't get the chance to make the decision.
And when I became pregnant, anger took over my entire soul, again. I hated him. I threatened abortion, but he prevented it in the worst of ways. I had no one to talk to, locked in that back room all forty weeks. Only him when he came to visit. And had I the guts to hurt myself, I would have. But pain wasn't something I was fond of.
I knew what he'd had planned when he kept trying to get me into that room, not long after he forced a pregnancy test on me. I saw a doctor, who told me that I was six weeks along, but other than that doctor, I saw no one. Not Mitch, or Rachael. Not that seeing Rachael made me the happiest person on earth, but it did give me joy to see the miserable look on her pretty face.
Then, three weeks before my due date, I went into labour. I was asleep when my water broke and slicing pain cut through my abdomen. This labour was much more painful than with Mitch, and I wanted to just get rid of the little monster inside.
Oh, but the joy I got when a little girl was born. Gerald, I could see, was angry. Another girl. He didn't want a girl! I laughed and named her one of my favourite names, Jenny. I was happy. I loved my children, even if I didn't want this one. But what I loved even more was knowing that I had given birth to a girl.
Gerald shocked me, however. He never tried to get rid of Jenny. In fact, he spoiled her. He gave her everything a little girl could ever want. And oh, how beautiful she was. Never once was there anything ugly about her. I couldn't help but be proud of the child that I had made.
Proud or not, however, I didn't want another one. And I knew he was going to try again. But this time, I did the most unforgivable thing I'd ever done so far in my life. Behind his back, I saw a doctor and had my tubes tied. I would no longer be able to give him children. And after it was finished and I called him from the hospital I was sure he wanted me dead.
When I got home, I recovered quickly from my surgery. To my surprise, Rachael didn't even bother to help me. She simply stayed in her room or in the library with Mitch. She never did pay much attention to Jenny. Not that I cared. Jenny was my daughter to care for; I didn't want Rachael to have anything to do with her.
What angered me was that Rachael had become selfish. She was so locked up in her own world of misery that she ignored me, even while I was in pain and agony, recovering from surgery. I hated her more for it. How could she so easily ignore me? How could she do that to me? I had been nothing but nice to her. Well, at least to her face, anyway. Hadn't I "helped" her through the worst of times?
And after I had healed up, I also began to notice that Mitch was pulling away from me. He only wanted to be with Rachael. He hated Jenny, and he would leave a room if I came into one. I didn't blame him, however. I blamed her. I hated her for taking my son away. No longer did he call me Mommy. He ignored my very existence all because of her.
And then I saw Rachael taking notice of Jenny, finally. And it angered me beyond some kind of self-control. She had taken my son's affections; she wouldn't take my daughter's. I couldn't even pretend to be nice to her, anymore.
"Put her down!" I screamed at her when I walked into the nursery to see her holding a three-month-old Jenny to her.
She jumped and looked at me. Then she put Jenny down into the crib. "I'm sorry, Ella. She was crying and I-"
"Shut up! Leave her alone. And don't ever set foot in her direction again! Do you hear me?" I clenched and unclenched my hands. I wanted so badly to wrap them around her neck.
She looked stunned and quickly fled the room. I watched her leave, but as I did I wanted to be watching her run from me. I wanted to watch her try to escape my harming her. And I wanted to do more than hurt her. I wanted to torture her. I wanted, so much, to kill her.
Rise from the Ashes Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue