Episode 25 - Mothers

(Music fades in)

Well, it’s the holiday season, and I hope you’re enjoying yourself, even if you don’t have a holiday in this lot. Even if it’s a bunch of ordinary days of the week, I hope you enjoy every one. You can still have joy, you know. No special occasion needed. Believe me: take moments of joy wherever you can get them because there will be times when they are very hard to get, and having some sort of storage to draw from will definitely help you through. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, and I’ve come to a certain conclusion. To a surprising extent, family traditions can help with this upward motion too. It’s not so much that they automatically bring joy, but what they do bring is not an entirely unrelated impulse. There’s something uplifting there. Like actually pulling you upwards and out of something. In an almost literal sense. Except it’s the equivalent of your soul moving not you physically moving. That’s the value of it. The gift, as it were. But that might be an... unexpected conclusion, to some. To those who have always had these things until they’ve lost them in some way. Then when you go without you realize what it was to you. 

That’s part of what gives the holidays their value, in so far as they have some. Maybe it’s more like ‘appeal’ because we can go without and suffer no real loss for the trouble. Allegedly. Take me as an example. I’ve gone pretty far without any sort of family traditions. My family--either side of my family--really doesn’t have any traditions to speak of. We don’t have much of anything besides frustration and sadness. Or the need to survive, otherwise unspecified. That’s how I’ve always thought of it.

Maybe it was a product of my own experience or--if you, dear listener, are comfortable being an arm-chaired psychologist for a bit… With a consenting patient in me, mind you. One that you cannot reach out to directly so minimal damage. Really, if there was any time for foolishness like this, it would be now. (with a sigh) What was I saying? Oh right. I don’t think this viewpoint--this belief that sadness and survival were the only things even vaguely close to a family legacy--is a conviction that draws from my own experience only. Rather, I’m pretty sure there’s more to it than that. I mean, I think it started with my mother. With her experiences. And maybe I shouldn’t be talking about them here, but I always found them fascinating. And she never really cared much about my privacy, so fair is fair.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

It was noticed that the prince’s new bride seldom spoke, but it was not known why. In truth, the prince’s new bride did not think it was in her best interests to speak. with so many unfamiliar people around her. She knew there was an art to properly discourse. Well, if one wanted to survive, they should know that there was an art to discourse. There is an art to presenting your thoughts and needs in such a way that interweaves them with your interlocutor’s. There is a way to make someone understand that keeping you around, safe, and alive, was an investment on their part. There is a way to assure someone that you are useful without having to directly say it. To directly say it was to say that you knew they were plotting something, which was obviously true; this was a royal court that came with all the intrigue and power-grabs that any monarchy would. But a delicate balance could only be reached through silence. You must also know when to be silent. 

Oddly enough, the queen did not seem to know that lesson. She had been far too forthcoming with the prince’s new bride about her needs and wants for her. She had been upfront about her predilection for magic and how… how dependent she was getting on it in order to solve her problems. To the young woman destined to marry the prince--destined to become the next queen--this was unsettling. 

She found herself doubting the older woman’s word and resolve and almost expected their interactions to end with accusations of witchcraft and a burning at the stake for good measure. But when the older woman showed the younger tools poorly crafted and incantations hastily and incorrectly recorded, the younger woman had no choice but to see what a fool the queen really was, dabbling in things she did not understand but that would not show her mercy for her inexperience. 

The queen needed to be protected, and she wasn’t necessarily wrong in thinking that her son needed such as well. The queen just did not seem to understand why and what it is that had gone so wrong. She saw the effects of her actions and misattributed them. She blamed a party that was not so innocent but not so guilty either. She saw a rupture in what the world should be but could not see her fingers in the pot.

And that was another reason to say little, the prince’s new bride thought. No one around you knows the truth anyway.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

My mom immigrated to the US to marry my father. That had never been her plan, per say. There were many ways for a young woman to make money, to make her way in the world, and those were all more appealing to my mom. There were many professions out there for her to choose from, and if that had been the path she chose, she would have her independence on top of everything else. To hear my mom tell the story, she loved to be independent. Growing up, other kids wanted marriage. Other girls, more specifically, let’s be real about how socializing tends to work. But my mom never wanted that. She wanted financial stability and freedom. And she saw she had choices in getting those things.

But what made her change her mind and settle for marriage, I don’t know. She won’t talk about that. Correction: she will talk about that, but she always says that she just fell in love with my dad. He was the perfect man for her, someone out of her dreams, and she had to run for it. Which sounds well and good, but to that story, she also adds that despite her distrust of the institution of marriage, she always wanted a child--specifically a daughter--and despite how liberal her views on marriage made her sound, Mom still held onto this belief that children did better being born into a stable relationship and that no relationship was more stable than a married one. 

And hey, she came from a country where divorce is still illegal, so yeah, there’s no getting out of that. 

But I never got the impression that my mom was thrilled to have me. She did like the idea of a daughter, but that was about it. The reality of it is very different. I thought most people knew that, but I’m surprised at every turn about it. Apparently it’s still a surprise to… way too many people

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The prince was amiable enough to his new bride, she learned, but he was the sort of person who was steadfast in his convictions. And that can be a virtue, but if their convictions do not line up with your goals, then it can mean trouble for you. It can mean that this person--whom you could be expected to marry if your luck truly is unfortunate--is steadfast in countering you. 

Shared ground is the easiest to meet on, though. So she tested the waters by asking him about their children. And when he was intrigued, she would push him, command him, ordering him about like no one should do to their future king. But he was not just the future king to her but the father of her future children, which gave her rights no one else had. And this was especially true because the prince did want children. It was not just a duty for him but a genuine desire. And so, she frequently thought, as she prepared to marry him, raising a child with him may actually be enjoyable. 

But at the same time, she saw the eyes in the shadows and the coldness in the princess’s glare. Hers was a plight only partially abated. The prince could not really protect her. The queen was right in that. The rest of it was in the hands of this young wife to be.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Suddenly, my mom was in a new country, far away from her home in the Philippines. With a child--whether or not I was wanted, I was still there. And even if her motives in getting into that mess, were as romantic as she wanted me to think they were, at some point, it would have made sense to leave. Things were bad, and they kept getting worse. Maybe things weren’t bad with Dad, you know. There are some terrible husbands and fathers out there, and he wasn’t one of them. He was doing the best he could, but he had baggage, and that baggage was toxic in a huge variety of ways. But he kept saying, of course he wasn’t going to leave his sister behind, and I get it. But why couldn’t my mom? Why couldn’t she take me and run? I couldn’t run on my own. I need her to leave. With me.

The GiftedDuckling wanted to talk to her about that. She thought she could reason with my mom, but no one could reason with my mom. It feels tacky and insensitive to use this phrase, but talking to my mom about this was like speaking a different language. Mom just didn’t understand the point you were trying to make, and I didn’t understand the one that was governing her life. No one did.

She never denied what my aunt was capable of. Granted, usually she would use the legalese Dad taught us, those things that came from various lawyers over the years, but my mom knew there was something wrong with my aunt. The one that lived with us. The one that was bloodkin with my dad and not her. But it was like she felt bound to my aunt. In a way I could never understand.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The prince’s new bride--who was about to be a duchess in her own right--knew of the pregnancy before anyone else. Even before the princess, though it was her womb that was now occupied. The duchess could never admit how she knew, but the signs were hidden in the lines of the young princess’s face and hair. In the curve of her body and the way she carried it. The body will announce the impending arrival long before the person is willing. But it takes a trained ear to listen.

And the duchess’s heart went out to the poor princess. For no one else but her understood the trajectory of the princess’s story. Past and future. It wasn’t just in the factual details. The duchess knew what it was like to be discarded, unwanted, and uncared for. She knew what it was like to go without, to hurt, and to suffer. It was why she had agreed to this match in the first place, though it was hard to be so far from home, though she had reason to be fearful of the supposed evil in her new sister. The duchess understood the hurt as well. The duchess knew to be guarded. She knew she had to be, but she did not have to be cold.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

When I left home, it was with my mother’s blessing. Not even a passive aggressive blessing, either. She did everything short of telling me to run, even giving me a nice wad of cash. And all of this was on the pretense of a temporary departure, of me going to university, but at the same time, she seemed to be silently telling me to not come back.

‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered to her. Which was a pretty all encompassing statement. I probably could have been more specific, but I would have taken any answer right then. And no one answer would have been enough regardless. 

‘We both knew hurt: her and I. It wasn’t our fault, but it made us who we are,’ my mom said in so many words.

I didn’t understand. There are a lot of questions. There are a lot of things in my family’s story that don’t make sense. There are a lot of details that no one will ever give me, and I have largely accepted that. But I had noticed that my mom and aunt seemed to understand each other in some odd way. They didn’t like each other. Far from it, but they understood each other. That in and of itself was hard for me to handle.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

The duchess, soon to be or otherwise, should not have dwelt on the connections between her and the princess. She should not have felt as connected as she did. Not only would that not have helped her predicament at all, nor that of the princess, but it could always make things worse. And there was worse. There is always something worse out there. And it met the two women head on.

(Extended - Music fades out and new music fades in)

Aishi Online is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. With music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. If you like the show please consider leaving a review or posting about it on a website that might not be around in five years. Make the post vague and somewhat mysterious but still compelling if you want. Up to you.

(Music fades out)