Work Text:
“Hey, Margo, what’s your relationship with your mom like?” Gwen and Margo were in the middle of watching Scream Queens in Gwen’s bedroom for their biweekly sleepover.
All Gwen and the rest of the spider society knew that her parents had a failing marriage and would fight it constantly, sometimes with her in the room. But no one knew exactly what her relationship with her mom and dad separately was like.
How was her relationship with her mom? Normally, someone would immediately say it was good or bad but…
She didn’t exactly know.
On good days they would laugh and make jokes together and it would feel like she had her mother present in her life. On normal days her mom doesn’t talk to her much besides telling her good morning and good night. On bad days, she and her mom would get into full-blown arguments. Her spider senses would go haywire, a constant buzzing in her head the longer the argument went on and the longer she tried to hold back her tears.
Lately, it’s only been bad and worse days when it comes to her mom. And no matter how much Margo tries to repair her relationship with her mom, it always falls flat or turns into a ‘scream at your only daughter that’s already going through a lot’ time.
Sometimes, she blames her mom for everything. If her mom just actually divorced her dad a whole year ago instead of constantly fighting with him and going out afterward or taking it out on her, maybe Margo wouldn’t need to learn how to deal with her depression in silence. Maybe she also wouldn’t be scared to tell other people what’s wrong because of how her parents treated her when she tried to tell them. If her mom stopped taking it out on her, maybe she wouldn’t feel like she had to lose sleep to make sure she was good enough for at least somebody.
What also hurts is that her mom just acts like she hasn’t done any of that, like her marriage is perfect and she has a strong mother-daughter relationship with her in public.
Sometimes, she blames herself for her parent's marriage failing. Half of their fights would always be about her to some degree, with most of the time her father defending her while her mom kept insulting her. The other half would be about each other and eventually, the two topics would mix every time. Maybe if she didn’t stay holed up in her room, eating Fritos instead of being outside of her room, crocheting with her mother and going out grocery shopping with her father and spending time with them and being ranked 1st in her graduating class instead of 2nd, she wouldn’t have caused their relationship to strain.
Sometimes, she regrets blaming her mom in the first place and thinking that she was in the wrong when she would cry in the living room and talk about how hard it was being a mother. Her mom would talk about what her mother put her through in her home, and how she never felt good enough for her and had to take care of her younger siblings like a parent when she was only around Margo’s age. She would talk about the words that her mom would say to her, especially the one time she said something that her mom still remembers to this day.
“So you want to tell your school that you wanted to kill yourself, Lorelei? Then go on and kill yourself! See if I care! I would still have two other kids to make me happy! And maybe they won’t fuck up like you seem to do.”
Sometimes, she blames her grandmother. It seems like the way her grandmother raised her mom heavily affected her even a whole 25 years later. She knows that her grandmother did try to visit her when Margo was younger and she and her mother got into an argument over it.
“Why the hell would I let you near my daughter after how you treated me growing up? Do you expect my daughter to be around a fucking devil that ruins the lives of people around them?”
“How dare you compare your mother, the person that carried you for nine months, spent 18 years raising you, made sure you were fed and clothed, the person that was your best friend, to the devil.”
“Well, that’s what you fucking are. Do you ever think to yourself why none of your kids wanted to talk to you after we all moved out? It’s because of you. I had to learn to suffer from my depression alone because you couldn’t be someone I could talk to. I’m still struggling with even starting therapy because of the shit you and dad said. With all of this in mind, I hope you understand that I would rather be back in that hellhole than let you near my child.”
“I have a right as your mother to see your child and you can’t stop me from doing what I’m supposed to do.”
“If you don’t get your crazy ass outta my lawn in the next five minutes, I’m escorting you out myself and I will make sure you never come near me or my family again. I never want to talk to you or your husband for as long as you guys live. The only time I’ll even think of visiting you is when you’re dead.”
Margo doesn’t exactly understand the hardships of being a mother, and she never wants to. She doesn’t want to hurt her child the way her mom hurt her. Bringing a child into this world just for them to go through emotional and physical abuse seems like a nightmare and Margo wonders why people would willingly do that even now. She doesn’t want to run herself dry and have herself drained mentally over someone who might end up not even appreciating her or even killing her.
But what finally put a permanent strain on their relationship was her mother finally starting therapy and trying to repair their relationship. This didn’t make Margo happy that her mom was finally trying to get better, or sad that it was hard for her to forgive her mom.
It made her furious.
Why is her mom deciding that now —after 16 years of making home something Margo felt anywhere but safe in, 6 years of feeling lonely and worn out, 2 years of her spider senses screaming danger, and 1 year of wanting to do anything but exist— she wants to get therapy to improve herself and try to repair their relationship?
What made her mom think she could just undo years of verbal and emotional abuse just like that? Why didn’t her mom want to start therapy the moment Margo started hiding in her room more? Why didn’t her mom want to start therapy or even couples counseling when she and her dad started fighting more? Why didn’t her mom want to start therapy and get better when her child was starting to get worse as an effect of her behavior? Why didn’t she start when 3 meals became 2 and 2 meals became 1 meal on okay days and sometimes just a snack on bad days?
But she misses her mom so much.
Margo misses the mom who would read books to her with a smile on her face when she was younger. She missed when they would play games together and her mom would just laugh and congratulate her whenever Margo won a game. She misses when it felt like her mom was her mom , someone who she could go to whenever something was wrong. She missed when her mom wouldn’t say how much of a disappointment she would be if she dared to bring home a B+ back into the house, and would just tell her that she already did so well and she could do better next time.
Margo misses her mom when she wasn’t the main reason she felt like no one would care if she disappeared. The mom that didn’t make her be filled with a desire to not exist and hope her bed would just absorb her and she wouldn’t have to wake up again.
“It’s… complicated.” Margo’s hands began to shake. She started to tear up and tried to not cry in the moment, especially not in front of someone. It was just a simple question, but why was it so hard to answer?