A Duck Quacks Preview: A Sore Loser
She was everything her mother told her not to be, and still, it hadn’t made a difference. Raised in a highly conservative family with the tumult of propriety everywhere she turned, it was difficult to win. She dressed well, had impeccable manners, and a dowry large enough to capture preeminent suitors... and still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted something more, something different.
One day, he came to her door, roses in one hand and a marriage proposal in the other. Of course, her parents approved; he was from good stock and had a bank balance that mirrored his social standing. He was the finest champagne of men, bubbling refinement and promising a life of forever bliss. In her soul, she knew it was a scam, but she went along anyway. She accepted the loss of any individuality she may have attained had she played the game differently.
Three years later, they had two delightful children and a nanny to care for them. She pranced the social scene unencumbered by poverty or guilt, making good use of charity to fill her lost evenings. He immersed himself in his work and was rarely present – physically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually, and nearly every other way – except financially. It’s what kept her content. And still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted something more, something different. She’d lost the teenage fantasy of her white knight. She accepted that loss with the daily immersion of false prophets who regaled her with the hint of emancipation through prayer, wine, and tolerance. The effect was only slightly comforting.
Twenty years passed. The children were grown and moved on to take up residence in the finest Universities in Europe, chasing dreams and catching rainbows. They weren’t yet satisfied – but they were working at it, fervently. She envied their opportunity and courage. She’d lost all of that with the acceptance of a rose on the veranda of a summer afternoon.
She remained at home, fighting off the jealousies of women who floated ghost-like through her marriage, never truly discovering her path of least resistance. She came to understand that agitation and quiet rage could not compete with the undulation of apathy or the tiny flame of happiness she dared to imagine. The singe of its heat eluded her. She craved nothing anymore. She’d lost the spark.
When he died tragically, on a ferry while commuting home from his latest lover’s chateau, of a brain aneurysm, she did not weep for him. Why should she? She’d lost the continuance she’d been dependent on for thirty years, and she was irritated that he’d left her the burden of their vast estate. There were lawyers to handle the delicate complications, of course. Still, she was saddled with the annoyances of the daily ills of maintenance. She’d lost the recumbent lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. She was on her feet now, more than was comfortable. A telephone relentlessly dangled within reach as she was forced to make unpleasant decisions daily. She was expected to choose paths that could never relinquish resistance. She was required to parent her grown children a continent away.
She resented all he had left her. She resented all he had done to keep her placid throughout the decades they’d been together. She resented the plans she was now forced to make to preserve the children’s entitlement program. She’d never wanted any of this. Now that she’d lost the key to her self-loathing with no new target of amicable anxiety, she resented herself.
The housekeeper found her a month after his death. Her naked body was draped with the jewels of his false remorse. Her head lay upon the pages of his investment portfolio, stained with the blood of her awareness. She’d left the world lost in a sea of heaving self-doubt. She’d had it all; she’d lost nothing tangible, only the love she never possessed. And yet, she rallied against her privilege and resented the moment he’d left her with responsibility.
She hadn’t coped with losing well.
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