Post by OLIVE MARGARET BAKER on Mar 5, 2012 19:12:01 GMT -5
OH BABY, COME TO ME .
She was born in the springtime when the orchids were in full bloom outside in the garden. To a mother bent on formalities and a father so caught up in his work that a paternal presence was rarely felt. The house was a large, sprawling thing perched right on the edge of London. Neighbors often expressed their envy at its antique charm, as though the estate had emerged from an endearing picture book of a different era entirely. But even as a young child, Olive never really felt at home amid its impeccable cleanliness. Playing with her dolls beneath a well-dusted crucifix in every single room. Being made to sit in the company of her mother's gossiping friends on weekends instead of stomping around outside like the other little girls in the neighborhood. She was filled with an energy that could not be sated by the confines of a picturesque house or occasional trips into town when her mother cared enough to take her out. Olive was three years old. But already she was willful and loud and terribly starved for attention.
Once school began, her loneliness was abated somewhat. But it wasn't an easy endeavor to make friends, at first, when other children were such foreign creatures to a girl who'd solely dealt with adults. But, gradually, Olive settled in to life with her peers and got on with them well enough. She found early fascination in reading and occupying her time with the colorful workings of primary school. By the time she'd reached ten years old or so, her mother had taken up work again after years of assuming the role of homemaker. And so Olive was made to stay with their neighbors, the Mays, after classes let out. Her mother had never fully trusted her in the house on her own and, even at ten, she was deemed too much of child to be left free reign of the place. Though she'd made quite a few friends by this point, Olive savored independence as though it had been hammered into her from her earliest days. And she didn't much enjoy the thought of being passed off to yet another adult's supervision. Yet grudgingly, she stepped into this new routine with the neighbors and found herself surprisingly content with the change. Their daughter, Victoria, was the same age as Olive and she made for good company over homework and mindless television viewing in the living room. But the Mays intrigued Olive for another reason, as well. They had a baby in the household. A pale little boy with a black, sticky mop of hair atop his head and the darkest, most perceptive eyes she'd ever seen on somebody so young. In a sense, he was more entertaining to her than any television could have ever been. Mrs. May exclaimed that the little boy must've liked her, because he didn't smile at much else beyond the yellow box of Cheerios atop the kitchen's cabinets. Felix, his name was.
As the years progressed, the Mays had Olive in to care for the little boy on a more frequent basis. Young as she was, she had a knack for keeping him content and Victoria wasn't shaping up to be the most helpful of siblings, besides. The Mays had had a baby girl by the time their son was three years old, and she'd been plagued with bodily illness from the very start. Naturally, the medical needs of the newest addition to their family tugged their attentions from the other children. Olive, with almost no help of Victoria's, assumed the role of looking after Felix, and she greatly prided herself in her ability to so easily take on a 'motherly' role so vastly different from that of her own distant mother.
It was then Olive began to entertain the thought of actual motherhood some time in her future. Only, she'd never have expected it to have fallen on her so soon.
She was sixteen. Beside the Mays, babysitting for the Aldersons who lived about a block away…because the entire neighborhood knew Olive by then and saw her as a charming girl who kept up in her studies and always greeted people with a confident smile. Unbeknownst to the lot of them, she was constantly fighting to please those around her and she desperately wanted to be seen as an adult in their eyes. Her mother was the only person with whom she openly sparred, and after a time Olive had plenty of people convinced that the woman was a highly unreasonable force in the Baker household. All of that professional sternness and that heady sense of religious devotion which she'd never once dropped.
Mr. Alderson was fast approaching forty when he arrived home earlier than they'd planned upon. She first spotted him in the hall upstairs pushing his coat into a cramped closet as he offered her some unintelligible excuse. She'd just finished reading the Alderson boys a story for the third time that night and was, naturally, surprised to spot their father as she slipped out of the children's bedroom. He appeared a bit disheveled, ruddy face a mix of emotions and his thinning, sandy hair rumpled like a tornado had caught him on the way to the house. She had no idea what he'd been through in the hours prior, but just standing there he was a full picture of desperation. Where was his wife? Olive had wondered. They'll left together, after all, yet it was plain that things between them had somehow gone awry.
He walked towards her without a sound, grey eyes so wide and lifeless that she wasn't quite sure what to do…how to bring up the questions that were swimming in her head. Finally, she asked him whether he was alright and she told him she'd make him some tea downstairs. According to Mr. Alderson, Susan didn't want him there anymore. The house was Susan's and the boys were Susan's and he was a man too focused on himself to make their life as a family worthwhile. This rift in her neighbors' marriage was news to Olive, of course, and it almost frightened her to see a person like him so vague and out of sorts. But, sixteen, and she was there to please. Sixteen and he was touching her in a single instant, such that she hadn't any time to think of flight. The boys were asleep upstairs and the kettle was crying out on the stovetop like a shrill siren to mask the unfamiliar gasps that spilled out from her lips. He wanted far more than tea for comfort.
In the weeks that followed, Olive was left in a state of shock. She was not fearful of Mr. Alderson nor did she find herself feeling particularly violated after the event. It had simply surprised her that he'd turned to her so abruptly in that moment. Susan Alderson was unaware of what had happened, but Olive had no intention of telling the truth and ruining the woman's newfound sense of jubilation at letting go of the man.
Scattered bouts of nausea prevented her from work or school after a time, and as her mother forcibly carted her off to the doctor, Olive was suspicious of the truth.
