Free Imperative Fate by Paige Johnson Page A

miserable.
    Divorce was looking to be a ripe avenue, but in a mere four months they were both extinct anyway. 
    In his final hour, Daddy begged me to stay a wholesome child who thinks of him as my true father. He didn’t have to; nothing can pierce my gratitude.
    Three months later, when I all but lived in a world parallel to her, Mama was still a self-loathing, self-imposed failure. A sickly one with bones that protruded like nails.
    It was true I drank prematurely and complained of my companions often, but I never set out to act impishly towards Mama. I craved her approval like a baby requires milk. I would sew my dresses when they got torn while I was playing in the woods and keep my room clean as a soap bubble, hoping she’d notice and kiss my forehead or place her warm hand at the crease of my back. I wouldn’t take but one furtive, chaste lover named Harold, thinking Mama would at least see me as ascetic.
    But none of these things totaled to tolerance. She begrudged me to her last gust of breath, decrying something of a “vile, unwanted slut.”
    Even though I wasn’t told of my origin until seven months ago, at age seven, I could sense Daddy wanted me more; he’d do everything Mama wouldn’t: To lull me to Wonderland, he’d read historical tales to me. To educate me, he’d put me through the country’s finest art academies and show me, firsthand, how government works. To cheer me from the chill of Mama’s supervision, he’d take me on the campaign trail.
    Whether it was sugary juice or love, he’d give me everything Mama chose not to. He reassured me that I was no curse, burden or beast when Mama alleged me to be a cause for vexed faces and lost appetites.
    In Daddy’s arms, I was the epitome of a child.
    As such—as I promised him—I must put these tart and morbid feelings away. In my porcelain teacup of trinkets, behind my tongue and outside the shadow my mind. It is the only way to honor Daddy and the Mama I wished to have had.
    I don’t dare let any dribs of decadence dot my lashes; I let them keep my irises company, but no more. My grieving ends today; it is to be put beneath the tiles of my childhood palace, to death.
    I give my bedroom one last look-around, studying the dark pink walls that have become clinical in age, the pristine vanity with the dozen unused perfumes, my collection of sentimental stuffed animals, and fear my stifled whimper will turn into suffocating sobs.
    Getting up from my lavender desk chair, I was about to grab the pink-bowed sheep sitting on my bed—the last plush gift Daddy bought me before abandonment—when a slender man in a sleek, black hat barges in.
    “Ready, sweetheart?” the smartly dressed chauffer asks me. “Mr. Winchester wants you in Waco well before dinner.”
    I let my hands fall at my hips. “Alright,” I compose my voice like a drab, classic song. As vulnerable as it makes me feel, I decide to bring nothing with me. Not even Daddy’s wedding band. I swallow and give a minute nod in the wrong direction, checking my face in the mirror for any emotional blemishes and my white-gold curls to see if they’re inline for my new Daddy.
    “I’m ready.”

Moving On
    Daddy used to tell me nerves are the most pointless evil, to be conditioned and quickly cancelled. He always knew the prettiest thing to say; people threw money at him for it. (How else do you think he got to the top tiers of Congress?) He was rarely wrong, but that didn’t make practicing his philosophy any less strenuous.
    As I watch stately trees scroll past my window, I realize the interior of my stomach must look as knotted as the old oaks do. Like a crazy or important person (what’s the difference, I ask you?), I keep checking the time on my charm bracelet. Assuredly, the metallic, little sheep and elephants chime no ETA. I groan quietly and put my face in the bowl of my hands, my thumbs immediately picking at the white, loose-knit gloves.
    “Excited, honey?” the car man queries,