#shout out to my nana for saying my dad spends money like water

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[hadestownmodern]

Disowned

I’m in my young Demeter feelings again WHOOPS

-Danielle

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            Demeter wakes with a start, her body shooting up out of bed. Her wild, untamed curls frame her pretty round face in disarray, and she shivers as her sweat-laden body hits the fresh air. It’s early, she can tell by the angle of the moon through her curtains, the times she’d woken in the same sort of state so many times before. Her rounded belly brings her comfort, but not enough; in the silence of her home she’s suddenly aware of just how big she is, how soon she’ll be welcoming a new life into the world.

            Alone.

            The word is unforgiving, relentlessly taunts her. It hangs over her head as she fights off the guilt of it all, the memory of slamming doors and shouting, of her mother’s tirade as she’d thrown the last of her things out the door of the quaint brownstone she’d grown up in. In these lonely nighttime hours it’s all she can hear; whore, useless, stupid…they’re the last words her mother had spoken before the click of the lock. Nineteen year-old Demeter had collapsed on the stone steps, looking around the neighborhood where she’d faced her life head-on. She and her mother had cried over her father there after he’d left them. She’d had her first kiss here, her first heartbreak. Her best friend had carried her here after a different kind of grief when she’d been betrayed by a clique of girls who’d been jealous of her big, bright eyes and infectious smile.

            This porch had been full of heartbreak. That rainy day hadn’t been much different.

            “Get out-get out of my house right now!” Her mother screamed, slammed her hand on the kitchen counter. Demeter flinched, one hand over her flat stomach, and flew from her seat. “What made you think that this was a good idea…before marriage? Before love?”

            “I do love him, mom, just not in that way. He’s a good guy. I think you’d like him.”

            “A good guy. Is he going to support you?!” She scoffs, whirling around the kitchen and tossing things onto the counter; a school photograph, a postcard from a school trip…all things that belonged to Demeter. The young girl does not move, watches as the pile grows larger. Her mother flies around the house as she shouts, tossing things into the kitchen with resounding thuds. “A good guy wouldn’t do this, Demeter. He wouldn’t. A good guy would marry you. A nice big ring…”

            “Marriage isn’t all there is, and,”

            “-Marriage is all there is when you’re nineteen and decide it’s a good idea to get pregnant. I should have never let you move out to that damn farm, your nana’s been filling your head with ideas since you were born.”

            “Nana had nothing to do with this.” Her voice is fierce. Even in her lithe stature Demeter is intimidating, fire coursing through her veins and searing her dainty features. Her mother stops then, stands the room’s length away from her and stares. The silence between them is palpable, mother and daughter, and Demeter holds her gaze steady and proud as her mother lingers over her unchanged stomach. “You know that nana loves us both, and even with dad,”

            “-Your father has no right to be mentioned in this conversation. And neither does his mother. She’s not alive anymore, Demeter, I don’t think you understand that. She can’t coddle you anymore. She can’t protect you.”

            “I’ll protect myself.”

“You’re not ready.”

“She left me the house!”

“That doesn’t mean you’re ready.”

“I’ll protect myself-and my baby.”

            “There’s still time, we can find a nice family who deserves this baby.”

            “And I don’t?!” This time it’s Demeter who loses her patience, irritation seeping into the usual smooth, evened tone of her voice. She throws her hands in the air, shaking her head at her mother as she simply nods back, a silent agreement. It’s all she needs to see to bring tears to her eyes, to break down the last wall blocking her vulnerability. She’d worked herself up in the car, had made up speeches and wordings that had brought along happiness she truly could only dream about. A relentless optimist; that’s what her mother had called her.

            A relentless optimist had sunken on the concrete steps, cried as the rain soaked through the old duffel bag her mother had shoved her entire childhood in. She had let herself take one last look; the quiet street amongst a busy city, the way each sidewalk paved its way to landmark locations she’d no longer see. By the time she got on the bus home, watched the city pass her by, Demeter looked like a new woman, all red eyes and sunken posture. She’d lugged her past with her, thrown it on the floor of the little farmhouse. She’d fallen asleep with both hands cradling her little baby bump in defiance-protection.

            She’s alone.

            The dream-living through her own harsh reality again-sends her into a state of rapid breathing and sudden panic. Seeing her mother again, the opulent house and the jewels around her neck, the trust fund money she liked to throw around to try and make Demeter happy…she squeezes her eyes shut tight in frustration, hoping to blink the image away. The days of the city are over; the ritzy private school, girls in matching uniforms who treated friendship like the stock market. Here, Demeter is happy. Here, she is able to breathe.

            Here, Demeter is alone.

            She runs ragged lines of footsteps around the tiny main room; living room, kitchen, rocking chair by the window and back again. She puts a kettle on with shaking hands and watches the fire of the stove for a minute, transfixed. Her dream had set a sort of numbness into her bones, leaving herself to feel like a child again, young and naïve. Too optimistic, too relentless, too impulsive, too kind; Demeter shakes the words away, runs her hair through long curls and attempts to jostle away the pit in her heart.

            Leaning against the wall, she holds her phone in shaking hands, slowly dialing the number that had been written on a messily torn strip of a paper bag. The voice on the other end is confused, groggy as he answers. It takes Demeter a moment to collect her own thoughts, to deliver them without choking on nerves or tears.

            “I don’t know why I’m calling.” She sounds young through her deepened alto, weaving her fingers in and out of the telephone cord. She lets out a dry, throaty sort of laughter. “I guess…I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, T. I don’t. I’m a baby, and I’m alone out here,”

            “Alone?” She can hear his trademark expression through the lift in his voice, his widened eyes and sideways smile. “You’ve got me.”

            It’s not presented as an offer, but as a fact. Theo lets her linger in the silence, listens to her unsteady breathing and the whirring of a kettle in the background. When the whistling grows louder, the phone drops and her footsteps are quick, clattering and brushing and her voice as she speaks to herself. The ragged nature of her voice has only increased when she comes back to the phone.

            “I know that I have you.” She chokes the words out, taps her fingers against the wall. “I have to go-uh-thank you, Theo.”

            Demeter sits in her big chair by the window, feet curled up as close as she can muster with the changed nature of her body. Her big nightshirt catches as her belly, which she cradles between her hands. Sleep is nothing short of a fantasy at this point, where her thoughts are filled with her mother’s stern eyes, her disappointment. The city had been kind to her for brief flashes of time; walking through the park as a child, hands in her mother and father’s. She liked sharing milkshakes with her friends, the freedom of public transit. But she hated the crowds, the people, the incessant talk of buying things that weren’t needed, spending unearned money on useless trinkets and fast fashion.

            She’d always followed her heart. She’d followed her heart to this house, with its old construction and its need for several paint jobs, the big, weedy garden her nana had tried so hard to keep up with her old age. She’d learned everything, sucked up all the knowledge she could before she’d had to say goodbye to the one person who’d supported her unwaveringly. Now, in her place of sanctuary, in the chair her nana had occupied every night, Demeter feels betrayed by her own memories.

            A knock on the door pulls her from her thoughts, and she turns her gaze toward the door to see Theo standing there, the nighttime darkness a backlight to his tall frame. He’s dressed in mismatched clothes, a pair of moss colored cargo shorts and a mustard yellow shirt,  one white sock and one yellow. He lets himself in, kicks his shoes off at the door and moves to stand in front of her. He takes her in; big shirt and curled up posture dwarfing her appearance, long hair a shield around her face. She looks up at him, the slightest quirk of her eyebrow as she takes a breath.

            “You were crying.” He says it simply, matter-of-fact. Demeter knows that she can’t hide from him, not when he can see the puffiness of her eyes, the forgotten cup of now lukewarm water and lemon on the side-table. New tears prick at the edge of her eyes, sting at the skin that has been rubbed raw from her sleeve, the back of her hand. She nods, looking out the window at the falling moon. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

            “It’s my mother.” She spits out the last word with disdain, frustration. “Did you know that you can just…throw your child out when they do something you don’t like? Because apparently, you can. And you can do it without feeling a damn thing.”

            Theo opens his mouth, hovers on a thought and then closes it again. She’s stiff in her chair, biting her lip and weaving her fingers through the holes on the chunkily knit blanket in her lap. These are mannerisms he hasn’t seen before, quirks so unfitting on this walking embodiment of sunshine and mischievous fun. It’s eerie, in a way, and he has to take pause to let her sink in her own feelings, to linger in the silence while her eyes search past the landscape outside, glossed over with an expression she attempts so desperately to hide.

            He lowers himself onto the low table in front of the sofa, one large hand on her knee. He keeps himself silent, runs his thumb along her knee, watches her hand trace careful, protective circles over her baby bump. Theo wonders in an instant how one person can look so vulnerable and yet so mature, so hardened by protectiveness.

            “She really threw me out.” Demeter’s voice is near a whisper, a whimper. She pulls the blanket closer to her chin. When she turns her head to face him, Theo’s breath catches in his throat. The depths of her sadness are written across every inch of her face-the wrinkle at the corners of her chapped lips, the redness of her eyes, the little strands of hair falling over her cheeks without the usual flustered brushing away. “She took all my stuff-threw all my stuff…put it in this big bag and locked the door behind me. Can you believe that? Said I was stupid. Talked about money, houses, rings…” She scoffs, shakes her head and uses the corner of her blanket to wiper her tears away. Then her voice dips again, quiets. It’s eerie, the even tone of it, and Theo has to lean forward to hear her as her face hardens.

            “She told me I don’t deserve this baby.”

            “You deserve this baby.”

            “But what if I don’t?” It’s not a retaliation to the stern tone of his voice, the way she answers him so suddenly. Demeter can barely think straight, her mother’s eyes still fresh in her dream’s memory, the disappointment behind them. It’s worse than being caught in her wild ways in high school, worse than her father leaving, worse than her own mounting fear of giving birth. Disappointment weighs heavy on her heart having grown up in a household where guilt was used as a bargaining tool. Now, it consumes her.

            “You have more passion for this baby than I’ve ever seen-more passion for everything. If you come across a problem you don’t just sit, you solve it. And it’s not the kind of fix that’s temporary. When  you go to do something, everyone knows you won’t stop until it’s done right, and it’s done proud.”

            He squeezes her knee as she relaxes a bit, sinking into the couch. The thin line of her lips has softened just slightly, just enough for Theo to take it as a cue to continue.

            “Demeter, you know this is how it was meant to be. When you believe in something, the world believes in it too. You mom….she’s in a different world. She doesn’t see you the way the rest of the world gets to see you. She wants you to be something you’re not and she can’t handle the fact that money couldn’t buy you the way it bought her.”

            He grabs her hands then, holds them over the blanket.

            “You asked me to help you have this baby weeks after we met. Not months, not years, weeks. And I agreed. Do you know why?” She shakes her head, and he lets out a laugh. “Maybe because I’m crazy-that thought crossed my mind a few times. But that’s just one thing. I agreed to do this because I couldn’t say no. I knew you-your energy, your light, your heart. I knew that you believed in this, and I knew in my heart that you could do it-I still know. I believe in you without a question.”

            “Theo…” She shapes his name but can not get her voice to come out, softened by his hands in hers, the way he leans his long body over and captures her with his honesty. She scoots over then, attempts to make room for him on the armchair. Although it is big it barely fits his tall, muscular frame. Demeter sacrifices her piece of the couch to curl herself into his lap instead, resting her weary body against his chest. With this comfort her eyes begin to drift shut, her breathing evening as she revels in the warmth of her blanket and his body against hers. Before she falls asleep, he can hear her soft whisper. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”