"Distance doesn't separate people. Silence does."
- unknown

DELIGHT DID NOT seem to grace Mother's face on the one day that I did wish to return home to the rugged shack, cracks—due to excessive rainfall and poor maintenance—letting slithers of light through. Cold and weary were her dark eyes, to which I had known so often in my adolescent life, as she surveyed my being, prodding and analysing my hands.

A ring.

She was looking for a ring.

"I see you're not married?" She questioned, although the tone was more so of a statement. A twitch of the eye it was that always had me on edge with her, and the heavy tone that laced her words, much like a burden, always had made me repulse her. Create distance between us. "You've been working there for weeks now, Amandine. Weeks. I want to see a ring on that finger by the time Sunday dawns upon us."

Mouth agape, I stared at Mother. Her aged skin did show in the slither of sunlight, her deep skin—which I had inherited—did not hide her prominent brows, which knitted in disgust at my empty finger. Coils that were thick and tangled were on show on her head, the eccentric look making her resemble much of Albert Einstein. However, she lacked the intelligence.

"Sunday? Mother, that's too soon, I—" I paused in my words, careful not to tell her about him. Jake Warrens. The proclaimed monster. The war machine. The man who was different and strange and held an immense rage within him, but did not act rash and with enmity. Not as though I had the feeling of love for him, but he was simply a possibility—a minuscule possibility to avert Mother's disapproving gaze, to distract her mind. "Never mind." I continued, releasing a breath. "But Mother, surely Sunday is too close?"

Three days too close.

"Amandine Lorette," her voice indicated a scolding, one in which I was confident of not wanting to hear. "I was married at the young age of fifteen." I had heard this all before. "And when I was married, I was happy and secure because I knew that I had a house as well as children and my life was set. Now you," She pointed a finger at me, eyes boring into my own, 'you, Miss Amandine, are well over fifteen years. You're twenty! Five more years of the unmarried life than I have had, so no, Sunday is not too close."

"Mother, the world has changed since you were fifteen. I am different to you; I have never wanted marriage."

"Have you thought of it, though? Contemplated the happiness of getting married—oh, and to a soldier? You would be the highest you could be—with your looks, of course—in society! You could attend those rich people balls—oh, Amandine, do get married to a soldier!"

"A soldier? Like any soldier?"

A smile graced Mother's face at my new interest in marriage. If only she knew what my mind really thought of—who it went to ... Even I was bewildered at my own actions, but it was all to get Mother off my back. Nothing more. "Of course, my sweet Amandine!" Clutching her hands in mine, I could feel the aged skin already. She had only turned over thirty seven years ago, but years of worry and stress had sucked the youth from her. Mother was nothing but a flimsy cloth, a wrinkled bed sheet; a sad, lonely and hopeful woman. And even if I wanted to love her because of that, it was those words—that prominent look of disgust that graced her face whenever he was mentioned that made me step away. Take three steps back. Create the distance. "All but him, of course."

Ah.

There it was.

We were doing so well.

"That sickening fool of a monster would want to have his way with such a pretty girl like you, Amandine. That grouch—putrid monster. He disgusts me, Amandine. He should disgust you too."

Even if her words did hurt me, did offend me, I did not wish to say anything else. What could be said? Jake Warrens—the proclaimed monster—said nothing, and still he held his head high. Jake Warrens—the man with a heart of gold, or so I had seen through such little actions of his—had learned to except what fate had handed to him, and still he took his stride into town. Still let the words be flung at him without care, without decency.

But Jake Warrens was a broken man.

I would not be broken.

"Mother." I begun, the silence that dawned upon us creating a distance. Not just in space—for she had almost strode out of the paltry kitchen, and toward her husband—but in relationship, in feelings and motherly affections. I stared at the woman before me, and I did not see my Mother. For some time, I had not. I couldn't stand her—the cruelty of her words, the strict way of conduct, how she sucked up to the rich folk. How she, and so many other people, look at him as though he was a monster—a man without a heart.

She was the monster.

Mother.

Mother, and all those normal people—and that word, normal, I say with a heart fuelled by venom.

I stepped toward her, closing the distance. Her height had only slightly succeeded my own, but the enmity in her eyes was ablaze, and did not bother to hide. If she wished to be explicit about her opinion, then so would I. Many times I had contemplated doing it—stating her wrongs, jabbing her, countering her—but I never had the courage. The will. For some reason, Jake Warrens had ignited the faltering fire within me. He'd shown me kindness and truth and vulnerability and honesty and rage and anger and envy. He'd shown me what it means to be human—what it means to feel.

"Fuck you." I spat, before striding through the rotting door, not failing to slam it shut. Only one thing had gone through my mind when I thought about my actions later that day, placing the folded clothing on his desk—newly repaired.

Jake Warrens. Thank you.