After Generations, and on LJ, written for this Call as well.
Chandra had never been quite certain about her grandmother’s misapprehensions about her mother, but she had been content to leave things as they were, for fear of rocking a boat that had been sailing uncomfortably for longer than she’d been alive.
It wasn’t until her daughter [daughter] was ready to go to Addergoole, along with her half-brother and her uncle, and her mother was back home, disconsolate and miserable after another relationship had gone to hell, that Chandra decided she needed to intervene. For one, she’d realized that her mother and grandmother’s relationship was barely older than her. For another, now in her thirties, the under-two-decades between her and Megan didn’t seem like such a wide gap.
She cornered Grandma Shira first, while Mom was out in the Village shopping, uselessly.
“We need to talk about Mom.”
“She’ll be done flighting around in a week or two and settle down, once Marco is in school,” Shira answered her tiredly, “and we can get back to life as usual.” She set her head against the window tiredly. “My other kids turned out all right.”
Chandra sighed. “Your other kids weren’t abused, Grandma. I did okay in Addergoole, and Carrig had me watching out for him, and our kids will have each other. But nobody knew about any of this back then, did they?”
“Megan never said anything…” Shira murmured.
“You know better. They still call your cy’ree the support group. You know why Kept who aren’t happy don’t say anything,” Chandra pressed. It wasn’t the same reason she hadn’t said anything when mom had gotten out of line, but it had its similarities.
Something in her voice had gotten her grandmother’s attention. “There’s something you’re not saying, isn’t there? Something else. Not just Shadrach the monster, may he rot.”
“Not just my father, no.” She emphasized “my,” and watched her grandmother’s eyes narrow in understanding.
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Ooooh.
Ooh, indeed?
Shira beat up elder daughter’s father?
That’s a neat translation, but not what I meant.
Shira will now go & beat him up?
She very well might!
Oh my. Pellitier missed a rather key one for her support group, didn’t she? That’s no good. I hope she can go beat up her former lover…
It took all the teachers a while to figure out what was going on, and Shad wasn’t nearly as bad to Megan as he was to Eris. But yes.
Ooooooooh! Thank you! I get so behind reading LJ so I had missed this until now. Now I need to reread it and try to work out who you are writing about! So, the character that I can kinda liken to myself is Megan? Despite mine being parental abuse. Is there ever any parental abuse in the Addergoole setting?
Mmm… I was thinking more Chandra than Megan. Megan may be the victim of abuse, but she’s also been a flighty, irregular parent at best.
Replying now to edits… Well. Shadrach and Meshach were abused by their stepfather. You can see how well they turned out. Ardell was emotionally abused by HIS stepfather. Jamian’s stepfather wasn’t exactly a nice guy. I don’t know of a parent from Addergoole who’s been abusive yet, but many of them choose to dump their kids rather than raise them.