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If anybody had asked her how she would describe her family she would have said ‘perfect’. They tolerated her lapses of judgment and supported her even after she had disappointed them time and time again. What more could she ask for? What more could she ask for that she would deserve?
Kitty adored Eleanor more than anyone else in the world. To her, Eleanor was the world. Eleanor was older, prettier, smarter, and everything Kitty failed to be no matter how hard she tried. She’d watch her sister talk to her friends, hearing whispers of the exciting things the ‘grown-up’ girls did and gossip about the most disliked ladies in the country. Kitty desperately wanted to join in, to be so adult, and so interesting but the hushed voices would turn to snickers and an air of awkwardness when she tried to walk over. Eleanor would whisk her away to play hide-and-seek, leaving Kitty in damp-covered corners of the manor for hours at a time, only to return to her friends straight after while Kitty grew colder waiting for her sister— for her best friend.
Eleanor would be forgiven very quickly and soon Kitty began to realise she just didn’t belong in her sister’s circle, which she accepted. She knew she wasn’t as beautiful as the fair-skinned twenty-somethings in the most elegant and expensive dresses, or as elegant as them and their fine-china tea parties. Kitty knew she was different and that’s why she was separate. She knew and she understood. She knew and she accepted.
Yet a part of her resented her sister. A part of her yearned to join them in matching floral gowns, waving fluttering fans in sync, giggling to each other through ill-disguised bliss. She wanted to laugh with them and have them adore her as she adored them. She yearned to be everything they were.
Everything she couldn’t be.
She resented herself most of all. Naive, unfavourable, klutzy Kitty. Her heart grew cold and envious, filled with sorrow and desperation.
But that all changed.
In death her heart began to warm. For the first time she felt an exhale of relief when waking up with the knowledge of who she was with. She was safe now. She was loved now.
If you asked Kitty how she would describe her family she would say ‘perfect’ because the group of misfits who lived at Button House could be nothing less.