Chapter Text
Mrs. Ara Bonnefoy had lived a typical life for the past forty years. She had been born in a typical English family, went to school, gotten a job writing an advice column for a news paper, fell in love, gotten married, moved with her husband to the United States, had a child, and generally lived her day to day life with very little of anything terribly interesting happening to her. It wasn’t as if she didn’t want to do exiting things, oh she had plenty of urges to drop everything and run off and join a punk rock band. But those urges were impractical and she was a practical woman. Even if she had given her readers impractical advice in the past from time to time, or advice that was daring, they were things that she would never do.
Ara was quite comfortable with her life. She lived in a good neighborhood in the suburbs of Washington DC. Her job paid well, writing an advice blog for a news site, for something that didn’t take too much time. Her husband, despite the fact that they argued often, was a good man with a good job (even if he was French). And she had her son Peter who went to a good public school and he was only nearly thirteen. There would be plenty of time after he was away at university to do more daring things, if she felt like doing so in the future. She wouldn’t do anything to ruin the typical comfortable life that she lived, even if things had her feeling like she really should.
Ara woke up the way she normally did, on her half of the bed curled up. Francis, her husband, had been gone to France on another business trip. They were trips that he happily took (after all he was a Parisian by birth) and his company had been sending him there more and more often. She slid out of bed, then quickly tucked in the sheets pulled placed her pillow where it belonged, smoothed out the floral comforter and laid the white lace edged blanket in place over it all. The bedroom she shared with her husband looked more like something out of the house of an eighty-five year old woman, but that old fashioned sort of thing put Ara to ease, even if her and Francis argued about the bedroom’s furniture and décor often, it was completely worth it. She took a shower in the master bathroom and got dressed before walking down the hall. On her way down the stairs she knocked on her son’s door to wake him, he had an alarm clock but refused to use it.
Ara made her way to the kitchen, it was one of the room’s that Francis had claimed, everything about the room was very much him. Positively chic, from the paint on the walls, to the appliance and furniture—it all looked like something out of a catalogue. She sighed making her way to the stove and filling the ever present stainless steel kettle with water before setting it on the stove. Her eyes shifted to the clock it was a quarter after seven, stifling a yawn she made her way to the base of the stairs and called up to her son, “Peter let’s get moving! You’ve got fifteen minutes until the bus gets here!” There was shuffling and banging, but the kettle was whistling so Ara went to finishing up making the cup of tea.
As she sat at the kitchen table sipping at her drink her son came down the steps in a pair of faded jeans and a t-shirt, his blond hair in a mess. “What time is it?” he said going straight to the pantry for his usual Poptarts. Ara knew she should probably make a healthier breakfast for her son, but he—like his father—hated her cooking and complained, plus if she just continued to buy the toaster pastries it meant they could both sleep in a little later.
“Good-morning to you too”, She said in a bored tone.
“Seriously—“ he looked back at the clock, “—shit!” he ran out of the kitchen.
“Peter you shouldn’t swear—“, she raised her voice to sold him, though the effort was futile.
“See ya mom gotta run.” The boy called as he slammed the front door behind him.