Momma Said

A woman has to shake off her past to fully embrace her family and her future. (A quick character study done for my creative writing class.)

Mama always said "Life was like a box of chocolate. You never know what you're going to get."

Okay, so that wasn't my mother. That was Forrest Gump's mother, and she was a decent person. My mother would tell me "Watch what you wear. Don't be like the s***s that your school," as she brushed my hair. Her fingers weaved locks of my hair into simple braids, and she would continue, "Keep your mouth shut around your father. He works all day for us; the least you could do is keep your head ducked and do as your father says. That's all you ever have to do." And then, as she would dab a rag around the bruise on my lips, she would add, "I just don't see why that's so hard for you."

I couldn't remember why that was so hard for me, either. I was seven years old, and Daddy had told me to go take a gift to our neighbor, who had helped my father during his gator hunts that season. He had said "Go now, before dinner," but then immediately retracted that and said, "No, wait until afterwards." When I had questioned "Are you sure?", he was quick to take his hand to my face, snarling that "Litte girls shouldn't question their fathers."

It was probably the best out of all the punishments I received, growing up in that house. My father had forced himself to go to the neighbor, whose name I have long since forgotten, and I was left at home to eat and be tended to by my mother. I received no other punishment when he came home, as he was full and warm from the neighbor's cooking, and I did not have to walk nearly a mile through the Louisiana swamps with nothing but the callouses on my feet to keep them safe.

I think about my childhood every time I see my children. It's quick, like always, but a flash to a moment that I had tried so hard to bury. I shift Katarina in my arms, to drive out to thoughts, to give her the motherly warmth I know she needs. My baby, my beautiful baby, is the first child to come from my body. She is mine, as much as I was my mother's and my father's. But she's not theirs. I will never make her theirs.

I remember my father coming home some nights, grumbling and complaining about "f*****g immigrants." They were coming into his land, taking up the good fishing spots and taking his food and his bait. Not our food. They took his food. They would wake up earlier than my father and go out to his fishing spots. They would sell the meat for less than my father, and they would make more. And mother would always say, "They just tryin' to rip this country apart, Richard. All they care about is themselves. They're the ones that left their families for money."

The immigrants were always kind to me, though. They never had to be. I was the child of the man who hated them, who shot at them. But whenever they saw me watching them - me, with my dirty clothes and sunken cheeks - they would offer me out food. Once, they even gave me a dress. It was an older dress, from one of their daughter's, but it was newer than anything I had ever seen.

I still have it, somewhere.

I wonder now what my mother would saw, if she could see me. I fear what my father would do. My husband would set no alarm bells off at first, of course, with his floppy blonde hair and green eyes. My father would see him and think "American," beautiful and strong and a natural citizen who has had to work honestly for every meal that has ever slipped past his children's lips. It makes me laugh.

"My husband is talking like this."

One can practically see the October Revolution coming from his lips, whenever Rurik opens his mouth. The Russian who trades his gun and skill for meager paychecks and long hours is the man who claimed my heart; not some golden child, football star with a habit for chewing tobacco and cutting the G’s off his words.

People always say “Little girls look for men like their daddies,” but that couldn’t be any further from the truth. My father used strength and an inch wide belt to put the fear of God into his five children. He used brutality and words to leave us cowering in the corner while he made himself out to be the Messiah, the Savior of our souls. His dark hair and dark eyes seemed to be the only reflection of something deeper within. But Rurik…

My father would cringe, if he could see the way Rurik treats us. He’d say Rurik’s less of a man because of the way he “coddles” his children and his wife. But that’s not true. I see the love he has for his children in every move he makes. I see it in the way he cradles Kat when she cries, hear it in the laughter when Jeremy and Marissa beg for just “one last story, daddy.” Everything he does is just so contrary to everything I witnessed growing up.

He isn’t just their father. He’s their daddy.

And he’s my husband, as well.

I grew up trapped in the grip of a man who cared more for money and God than his own family. I ran away at the age of sixteen and never looked back, not even when I was freezing on the streets of Chicago. Freezing to death, to me, looked far better than cowering in the Louisiana swamps. I barely spent two nights out in the cold, however; Rurik found me shivering amongst the dirt and garbage before the sun had set on the my second day of freedom.

I spent all of my life afraid of one man that the kindness from another left me skeptical, but time revealed the emptiness of my fear. The floppy-haired, goofy-grinned mercenary gave me a roof over my head and a couch to sleep on. He provided food, and in return, I cooked, cleaned and took care of his children. To be honest, they won me over long before their father.

Those two miscreants, so very different despite their twinness, were the first light to ever brighten my life. Marissa, with her troublemaking ways, and Jeremy’s gentle curiosity. He reads books at seven years of age that even now I could not wrap my head around.

To be honest, though, I have a second grade education at best.

It’s hard to think about it now, as my little one, nestled between the crook of my arm and my breast, drifts in and out of consciousness. Would I have turned out any differently than my mother, had I stayed? Would I have remained meek and mild, a child to my tiger of a husband? Probably. I would have endured abuse. I would have endured watching my children be abused.

I clutch Katerina closer to me.

Rurik is the father and the husband my own father could never be. He never raises a hand, rarely ever a voice. But that’s… To say that makes a great husband is to say being a decent person makes you a great person. To me, he’s so much more than that. He comes to me when they’re asleep and helps me clean the kitchen. He washes the dishes, cleans the counters. While I sweep, he laughs and sings songs that I will never understand. He brings me close at night and reminds me that he loves me, he loves the life we have. Even if we’re struggling to get by, he wouldn’t trade anything I’ve brought him.

He’s such a beautiful man.

And I’m a beautiful woman.

I suppose a lot of people would have expected me to say something along the lines of “I’m beautiful because of him,” or “to him, I am beautiful.” But that’s giving him too much credit.

I left my home. I left the man who had terrorized my family and my life since the day I was old enough to knock a sippy cup off my highchair. I hitchhiked and stole my way up north. I adopted two beautiful children and one Russian for hire. I birthed a gorgeous baby girl with eyes like her mother’s, and her father’s cheeky grin.

I’ve made a life for myself here, amongst the cold air and colder streets. I’ve reclaimed my life, my nerve and my name.

Victoria Rose Ashwood may have withered to death beneath her father’s shadow, but there was no way in hell that Tori Rudakov was leaving her place in the sun any time soon.

Author's Note

I apologize if this makes no sense to my readers. It was a character study that we were to do. I hope it's still worthwhile, though.