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When she finds out who her ancestor really was, she's not even a little bit disappointed. She thinks she ought to have been--thinks there might have been some soreness in the disconnect between the woman she'd pictured throughout her childhood and the sleek, sharp-tongued darling of the ancient literary world. But as soon as she opens her very first Complacency of the Learned book to the photo on the dust jacket, the fantasy of a smiling woman wrapped in shapeless Carapacian cloth disappears entirely. Two pages in, she can barely recall the soft, hazy-faced figure she used to imagine calling her home for dinner.
Rose would probably find such a figure sickeningly domestic. Her dark mouth would, no doubt, curl in a horrified grimace before she hid it behind one of her expensive martini glasses.
Roxy entertains herself with this new ghost for a while. This is the game Roxy plays when she is ten: Rose has only just stepped out for a night on the town, and never wanted a child at all. She would want to be called Rose, only Rose, never anything so gauche as 'Mom.'
"My life is soooo tragic," she tells a young Carapacian solemnly. "Rose is hellaciously neglectful. I hardly ever see her at all nowadays." The young Carapacian blinks slowly at her. Its chitinous faceplate is entirely expressionless, which Roxy takes as encouragement.
"She's off on a book tour right now," she says. "On one of the human planets out there. She's probably pretending she doesn't even have a daughter while she's schmoozing with some big-shot human dignitaries."
When Roxy is eleven and three-quarters, just learning to paint her fingernails with blobby colors that shout against the grey shades of the colonies, she thinks...maybe not. She's reading Complacency of the Learned for the fifth time (and it is the fifth time, Dirk can shut up about it not really counting when she skims the middle bits) and the thought occurs to her that maybe Rose wouldn't have been the bright, cruel socialite celebrity she'd been visualizing. The woman who penned Calmasis' internal monologue in Chapter 5 couldn't have been so one-dimensional, after all.
Roxy wonders if she would have let herself be called 'Mother.'
By the time Roxy's thirteenth wiggling day rolls around, complete with the pumpkin pie she always bakes for herself and three blinking notifications on Pesterchum to attend to, Mom is as solid as the dusty wizard statues mounted in the hallway. Of course Rose Lalonde would embrace the role. She would be absolutely perfect at it--assiduously packing Roxy a brown-bag lunch every day, elegantly coiffed hair framing a flawless smile and a passive-aggressive jibe. Every word and gesture would be drowning in symbolism, every turn of phrase a puzzle to be picked apart, just like her books. By now, Roxy has filled up whole notebooks trying to understand what motivated Zazzerpan's absence in the fourth chapter of the third CotL installment. Why had she ever thought that Rose would dole out straightforward affection or neglect?
Roxy leans her hip against the kitchen counter, envisioning Rose doing the dishes in marigolds and kitten heels, and feels a sweet shiver run down her spine at how much both of them would hate it.
timaeusTestified [TT]
began pestering
tipsyGnostalgic [TG]
TT: It's actually pretty weird that you talk about her like she's your mom, you know.
TG: oh right i forgot it was TOTES my iaed to construct an elaborate famililal ruse for janey and jakey
TG: *idea
TT: It's also weird that you can spell 'elaborate' but not 'idea.'
TG: its a typo you sasduoche
TG: *assdchoue
TG: **u suck
TG: neway you wnat me totell them shes my sis or somehting?
TG: because THAT would be wierd
TT: I admit it's not an easy relationship to put a name to. I just think that 'Mom' is...an interesting choice.
TT: But you're right, it is probably the one our temporally disadvantaged compatriots can understand best.
When she's almost fifteen, Roxy tries thinking of Rose as a sister, or maybe an aunt. Just for fun. She tucks her feet under her on the couch that Rose picked out centuries ago, leaning into the cushions like she has so many times before, and closes her eyes. She wonders what it would be like to see Rose letting down her guard a little--looking young and pretty underneath all the severe makeup she'd favored in her rare publicity shoots, sleeves pushed up to her elbows as she flips through a magazine like an ordinary person. Rose might make some dry comment, eyes dropping to hide the squeeze of amusement at their corners, or lean in close to tuck Roxy's hair behind her ear, unguarded, maybe.
Roxy opens her eyes, and does not picture Rose again.