Work Text:
It wasn’t exactly unusual for Abigail to find herself curled into a ball at the corner of her bed on the floor sobbing her heart out. Life had been fairly unkind to her after all. However, once her little silver-lining named Delaware was born, she tried to be less… broken , one could say.
The floorboards beneath her creaked as she pushed herself farther into the wedge. Her dark cold room was quiet, with exception of her gentle sobs and the sound of crickets outside the window. A chill caressed her tauntingly, as the grip she held on her arms tightened in discomfort.
She was tired. Good lord , exhausted even. What was she thinking? She couldn’t mother a child let alone be good at it! For the footsteps in the sands of time she was meant to walk in had been washed away by the cold harsh waves of grief and abandonment. How can one go about parenting a child when they themselves had no one to parent them? She was scared, lost, and confused, she had no one to guide her or to lean on. What was she to do?
Abigail had thought about writing a letter to her father begging him to come back to her, to help her. Then the memory of his cold heartless eyes framed by his rain-soaked hair and grimace strikes her like lightning and forces her to recall why she hesitates to do so in the first place. Her Father, no, England , had wanted her dead after all. Why would he come to her rescue now? He didn’t when she was young, no matter how much paper and effort she wasted trying to send letters to him. She had no reason to believe that he would care about her, much less her child, but then again, she was naive and perhaps a tad delusional to say the least.
Abigail lifted her head off her knees and wiped away tears in a pathetic attempt to halt their flow. She looked over wistfully at her son, her little baby Arthur , who had begun fussing from his little hand-me-down crib. Standing on shaky legs, she pushed herself upwards, and walked over to her little boy.
“I know, I know, little one, I’m right here.” She comforted, as she leaned over the edge of the crib and grabbed the babe.
Her heart somehow managed to feel both lighter and heavier at the same time as she held him close to her chest. Her son began to coo and giggle the moment she picked him up. Abigail rested his little blond head on her shoulder as she made her way to the edge of her bed to sit down on.
Abigail watched with a bittersweet smile as her son began to fidget with her night gown, and its curious little folds and frills. She giggled as the boy’s curiosity and wonder, his eyes were bright, wide and full of joy, like how hers once were.
She found herself praying to a god she no longer believed in that those things would never fade from him.
Abigail didn’t notice the look of sorrow that had graced her face, but her son most certainly did. She slightly startled as tiny chubby hands gently rested against the sides of her face.
“I’m sorry little one,” Abigail whispered.
The boy just blinked in what must have been confusion, unaware of what true sorrow was or why it seemed to plague his mother so.
Abigail gently caressed the sides of his face, oh how she loved him, more than she thought possible, more than she could understand. She found herself wondering how a parent could be so cruel to something so young and innocent, how they could just abandon their daughter like that, how they could just leave her to rot, how he could just leave her. Why did he leave her? What did she do wrong? Was she wrong? A mistake? Why such cruelty? Why such hatred? Sin of the father, sin of the daughter, sin of the shepherd, little black sheep forced from the herd…
Abigail hadn’t realized that she had wrapped herself around the child or that she had begun to cry on him. She quickly pulled herself up and away from the now concerned toddler who was still gripping her in what seemed to be an uncoordinated little hug. She looked away, ashamedly, clenching her bag-ridden eyes and teeth.
“Mama?” A little voice queried.
Her breath hitched and her eyes snapped in shock as it landed on her son. He had never spoken actual words before. All the pain and sorrow she had been feeling was briefly elated by the joy of hearing her son speak.
“Yes little one, that’s me! Mama!” She gleefully responded, sad tears now happy, as she smiled and squished his face.
He began to echo the word, a part of her thinking that he must have been aware that it was the cause of her change in attitude. What a smart little boy he was…or at least that’s what she told herself, he was her son after all. She was allowed to think he was the greatest gift of all, because to her, it was the truth.
She loved the little boy with all her heart.
She would not be like her father, she vowed.
“Mama!”
Mama indeed…