Clouds
Victoria watches her sister in law from the corner of her eye. It is only when her muscles start to tremble that she realises that doing a bendy dog whatever, and staring, eavesdropping, at the same time is not what yoga was made for. She straightens up, and does another move, who knows what it’s called. She is not into yoga at all, but needs to stay fit and trim, healthy…
She breathes out, more a sigh than a breath, and leans over, to hide her tears, hoping they won’t actually let go of her eyelashes and drop onto the mat. “How sad my life has become,” she sniffs, “when did that happen?” Then she takes another breath, and speaks to herself in a totally different voice, “Come on Victoria, what is going on? Having your surname changed isn’t the same as having a total personality makeover, old girl! You know you’re fine, you love Chris…mostly…well when he is in one of his rare happy moods anyway. Oh dear, here we go, right, try that one again: you love Chris, you get on really well with your kind cousin, you get on pretty well with your cousin’s wife Tabitha, the inlaws are ok, ehm, well, come on woman, keep counting your blessings!”
She sighs, this really isn’t working at the moment. It should though, she is normally such an optimist. Getting married, moving in, they are big events, and then that awful disease, Llama Flu, that hit cousin Richard…she shudders, and can still feel the stress, the fear, right deep inside her. She thinks back to those days, straight after their double wedding, and can still picture Tabitha’s face, eyes, staring, fear vibrating off her in huge waves. She was so scared herself as well. She has always been very fond of strong cousin Richard, and moving into this household didn’t seem such a massive deal with him under the same roof. The idea of him so ill, and possibly dying, scared her witless, as by then she was starting to get tiny inklings of the support she might need and want.
The first tiny ripples in her Pond of bliss came during the Wedding Event itself, and were totally unexpected. She was feeling regal and beautiful in her white wedding gown, Chris looked smashing in his tux, smile in place as it had been all during their courtship, engagement and still was now in the wedding. The change in his face came when they discussed having a family. She thought it was a nice intimate thing to chat about, you know, test the waters a bit, try and get onto the same page if possible.
She was not prepared for the dramatic shift in his mood though. “Kids?” he had growled, yes, growled! His voice sounded weird and angry and…scary! “What do you want to talk about kids for? We’re not even married, are we? Can’t I just enjoy you for a while, you know, just me and you, without having little kids crawling all over the place? Do you know how much energy and time they suck up? How can I concentrate on my calling with demanding kids around?”
He had stormed off, leaving her standing near the arch, too shocked to speak, too bewildered to move! Was this Chris? The same guy she had spent all that time with, the happy, smiley, charming guy? She had gone inside, trying to look busy and involved, smiling at the others, hoping that they hadn’t registered Chris’ absence. He had been back after half an hour, charming as ever, smiling at her, as if nothing had happened. She struggled, couldn’t change faces that quickly! He had been annoyed, she remembered, and had actually rolled his eyes at her!
“I’m here now, and talking to you, aren’t I?” he had sighed like a martyr, “I know you’re trying to make me feel guilty, and you probably feel I should be grovelling before you, begging your acceptance or whatever. Well, I won’t. I think it’s dreadful the way you try to manipulate me into apologies!”
She could feel her face going hot, even now, thinking back about the incident. “I should have known,” she mumbles whilst stretching the other way, “I should have run a mile then and there! I didn’t, I was sure it was just nerves.” It soon became clear that nerves were nothing to do with it, for as soon as they were securely married, he changed. In fact, Victoria hardly recognised him most of the time. When she mentioned it to her Mum, she had just smiled at her.
“Most men change once they are married, dear. There is nothing to worry about, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s probably nervous as well, and with cousin Richard so desperately ill, well, no wonder Chris is a bit unsettled!”
Victoria had felt very alone, sure that it wasn’t just the normal change in a man after he has gotten married. She felt the change was too monumental for that, it was like a totally different man altogether. They way he glowered from morning till night, and sneered when she talked to him, dismissing anything she said offhand. Also, she felt sick and tired of his victim stance after just a few weeks. “Honestly, if he mentions Injustice or Restoring a Great Wrong one more time, I might just scream! It’s amazing how he manages to bring it up so many times a day! He is just obsessed with the whole idea of bringing justice for this ancestor, for restoring whatever went wrong. All it means is that one guy didn’t see his children take over the house. Not particularly a massive deal with this house if you ask me!”
After a while the constant moans and groans from Chris were starting to get to Victoria, something she would never have thought possible. He is so paranoid, she whispers whilst trying to get herself into a triangle shape. No wonder I’m getting paranoid too! Where has the real Victoria gone? She walks off quickly, and pretends to go to the gold bathroom. She washes her face, spending as much time as possible in the bathroom, whilst trying to find her smile back. “I mustn’t give in,” she whispers sternly to the pale face staring back at her in the mirror, “I really mustn’t give in. Or give up hope for that matter. I’m sure he’ll change back sometime, I’m sure I can help him, after all, without children he won’t be able to undo the whole ancestor thing, will he? He needs children, I just wished he wouldn’t be so hateful all the time…”
Watching Tabitha and Richard have their sweet daughter Eva had made things worse. As soon as Eva was born and started to get too big for the bassinet she had mentioned having a family again to Chris. He had exploded with rage, leaving her in tears. When he had calmed down enough to stop yelling he had justified his aversion against children. “Can’t you see how Tabitha dotes on that child? Can’t you see how she smiles at her, hugs her, and only has eyes for the girl? What about Richard? What husband wants to share his wife? I don’t want you to look at another person like that. I want you to only look at me in that way!”
After that he had become more and more suspicious. “Why are you so keen to have a family?” he had asked. “Have you got plans or something? Have a handful of kids, and then rush back to your fancy mansion, taking my children with you? Is it that I’m not good enough for you? Do you need children to make you feel better?”
Victoria had tried to placate him, making it worse. “Of course not, Chris, I love you, you know that? I really didn’t mind giving up the Knight house for you, I’d follow you anywhere, to any sort of house!”
That had not gone down well, she still grimaces thinking about the storm that had broken over her head at those words. Chris in tears, sobbing that nobody loved him, that he was never accepted for who he was, that even Victoria now said that his house wasn’t good enough for her and that she only lived here out of duty, sacrificing everything for Chris. Didn’t she know how that made him feel, why was she so hateful, manipulating him, forcing him to spend more and more hours at the office in order to earn a high enough salary to satisfy Victoria’s demands?
She stands on the pink yoga mat, and can still feel the shakes, and the cringing feeling in her stomach. What could she say to that? He hasn’t said very much about it since then. She has seen his mood deteriorating though, especially since Theodore was born a few weeks after the incident. Victoria daren’t bring the subject of children up again. She knows with the bassinet filled up, she won’t be able to have a child anyway. What is the good of setting Chris off again?
She struggles through the next few moves, watching Tabitha, feeling despair licking at the edges of her heart. Tabitha, about to have another sweet baby, smiling, and obviously on top of life, enjoying time with Richard and their beautiful children. A third child! “It is so unfair,” she groans, “so unfair, I could just cry for weeks. Why should they have three, and I can’t even have one? Not by choice either, at least not my choice! I can see them looking at me, wondering why we haven’t asked for the bassinet before. I have to smile at them, pretend life is hunky-dory, and our marriage is wonderful and living in this house is like…like living in a bed of roses. I miss my mansion, I miss my family, the beautiful carpets, the bubble blower, friends popping in and out. All I have is a miserable husband, too grumpy for words, sour and bitter, only concerned with his Destiny, mumbling about justice, never once thinking of anybody else…”
“I am desperate, Lord, I am so desperate to just have a child. I have three traits already, what if times runs out? Lord, please, change something, anything! Change Chris, change me, change whatever is needed, but please God, just give me this one child. I just need something to hold, something warm, something that belongs to me. I need someone to love, unconditionally. I am just so alone, and so unhappy! The worst part is that everybody expects me to smile and be upbeat. I can’t take it anymore, Lord, please help me!”
Victoria wants to trust, to be accepting, even accepting Chris and his bizarre moods and anger issues, but it’s getting harder and harder. She just busies herself with her yoga, hoping it will keep her in shape, keeping her strong enough to carry a little one, even when she will have all her traits if it comes to that! They all are busy with their hobbies most days, and Richard just loves his piano. The sad truth is, Chris loves the piano, he loves the kitchen, and he has chosen writing, because he loves it… The fact is that Chris tends to love whatever somebody else likes, especially when he can’t have it! He chose to be a writer, explaining that it was part of his Destiny, his Quest for Justice, that he would need to let the whole of Sim World know how he was going to rectify the Grave Injustice done to his ancestor. So Tabitha decided to do the cooking hobby.
“Well, I will need the kitchen a lot as the table is large, and I don’t think it will be a good idea for you to work in the kitchen when I’m trying to concentrate.” He had protested that Tabitha would squash his Gift, and that of course, she wouldn’t understand how important his lifework was, that nobody understood him, least of all his family! He had sulked and moped about for a week or so, until Victoria had chosen the yoga hobby. That had really set him off, exclaiming that he could not cope with being shamed by his wife. He wondered what he had done in his life that made people hate him so much, that all he got from everybody was contempt, and everyone was out to block him on his mission.
Victoria had sighed, then dressed her face in her widest smile, and moved the mat as near the kitchen as she could. She had explained that she had to take up a hobby, and that having a fit, trim, healthy wife would surely be an asset on his Quest. He had grumbled at that, eyeing her suspiciously, studying her bright smile to see if he could spot scorn anywhere. By now, however, Victoria could blank out any hateful or spiteful or disgusted feelings for this man, with a perfection that stunned even herself! He didn’t spot anything, so the grumbling went back down to the normal, daily rumblings, and normality as Victoria had come to know it was restored.
That is, until Richard chose the Piano hobby…! Chris had ranted and raved for ages, furious with Richard for taking up such a creative hobby. “You need a genius to play the piano well, everybody knows that. It should be part of my calling, my destiny, to play the piano. How can I write and put my thoughts into words for the whole world to benefit when someone who didn’t even carry over his Good Upbringing trait is banging away, pretending to be a playful plunker! Right next to my desk too, I can’t even hear my own thoughts or inspiration, and I know he just did it to mock me. He has never liked me, and always tried to belittle my existence in this house, and now he is doing his best to destroy me completely!”
Victoria sighs, she is aware of how much the other do despise Chris. He brought it on himself though, as none of them started out that way. In fact, most of them feel quite sorry for him, the only child of a rather obsessive mother and old father, he didn’t have an easy life as a child. On top of that, his Mum filled his head with talk of his destiny, and how he had to restore justice for his ancestor Chris, and how he was set apart to do great things. No wonder he is odd, and hard to live with… That is no excuse for his obnoxious behaviour though.
“It might be a reason, but not an excuse,” Tabitha had said one evening, Victoria, stretching just outside the kitchen window, heard Tabitha and Richard discuss Chris. “I know he had a tough time, but so do lots of other people. Doesn’t mean to say you can do what you want, and get away with it. I do feel sorry for Victoria, I wonder what…” Her voice had disappeared then, as the two of them had left the kitchen, leaving Victoria to mull over their words. Well, she wonders too, wonders where her sanity can be found again! She twists, bends, stretches…and prays…with all the frantic longings of her heart, “Please Lord, one child, just one child…”