Both the Sheep & the Wolf

She wasn’t a pretty girl. Her eyes were small and just a few millimeters too far apart. That made the bridge of her nose too wide, and the tip hooked when she smiled. Her teeth were shifted just left of center, with a few overlapping. Her hair was limp and thin and that unappealing color folks used to call dirty dishwater. No, she wasn’t a pretty girl, but she was thin, she made sure of it. And that’s why she believed him when he said she could be a model.

He approached her in a pub. He was ten years her senior at 29, while she was just 19. He was a photographer, he said, a semi-famous one. He had taken photographs of the Beatles and Eric Clapton when they were first starting out, when they played the local club circuit. She was enthralled by his stories, by his adventures, by his world travel. He said she could be a model, and she should come by his studio sometime.

She went. It was everything she ever wanted. To be told she was special, beautiful, and perfect. Soon, she was naked. Posed on a ladder with a paint bucket dangling from her hand. Then, they were tangled in a pile of pillows and blankets where they made love. She had never been with a man like that before. She stayed with him so late that the photos had been developed and dried before she left. He unclipped the black and white prints and slipped them into a drawer, insisting that he would keep them safe.

She walked home in the dark that night. As she approached the house, she saw the orange glow of a cigarette from the front window, indicating someone had waited up for her. She let herself have one last silly notion before she set her face to stoic. I’m going to marry him, she thought, if it’s the last thing I do.

Her mother hated him the moment he walked through their front door weeks later. Her mother, who also hated her, insisting she was too plain and too stupid to ever amount to much. She was the youngest of four, and it wasn’t a secret that the pregnancy before her ended with a wire hanger and a mop bucket. The rest was implied.

Her older sister had just married a constable who, upon her mother’s request, ran a background check on him, perhaps illegally. Her mother spat at both of them when it lit up. Instead of scaring her, the hate and rage only made her that much more determined. She was going to marry that man, and she would show them. Her life would be better than anything they could ever imagine.

Everything she did was wrong in her mother’s eyes, so it didn’t matter. Many lectures over the months turned into attacks on how stupid she was and what a mistake she was making. They said he was a bad man, but she looked around and wondered who wasn’t?

A year later, in 1980, they married. She compared herself to Princess Diana. She wore long sleeves and a tiara for her veil in her feathered bobbed hair. They married in a church as was tradition. He was more reserved, but she thrived with the attention. It was a small event as neither had extended family and not many friends. But being told she was a lovely bride fulfilled her. She felt purpose and pride. She had married him, that was the goal, but now she wanted the complete family.

He said he didn’t want kids. But birth control failed all the time. She hated that pill anyway; it made her face feel round and puffy. A few months after Diana announced her pregnancy, she did the same. And coincidentally or not, the same thing happened the second time as well.

They had two girls born four months after Prince William and Prince Harry, respectively. Her girls with matching names, whom she dolled up in matching outfits. They weren’t even Irish twins, but she liked to pretend. It brought more attention that way. The oldest was too much like her. Still, she was certainly cuter than her sister’s kid. She’d had a round thing with a piggy nose and awful orange hair with the officer.

But the little one, she was unique and cunning, smart too, like her father. Long, thick, chocolate brown hair that she brushed until it shone. Huge eyes in the softest cornflower blue. And the best part was twin dimples that popped out when she smiled, which strangers on the street would comment on.

Sometimes she’d hear a comment in passing. Others, the ones who were more outgoing, would call out how darling she was, or some would even stop to chat and ask who else in the family had such a dazzling smile. She lived for these interactions; it made her proud, proud that she had made such a beautiful child. It was proof that she must be beautiful too.

She thought she was happy with their little family until he started to get restless. His fidgety behavior made her anxiety rise. She needed him to be happy. The thought of him leaving would send her into the bathroom to gulp in air to squelch her panicked breaths. He didn’t want kids, he said so. She did everything in her power to keep them quiet and clean and out of his way.

Then he started talking. It came on slowly. He couldn’t find steady work. She didn’t dare mention that could likely be attributed to his temper. He mentioned how there was nothing for them here. He needed something different, he said, a change, a fresh start.

“Think of it,” he said. “We could be free, just us, our family, free from your bitch mother and whore sister.”

She wasn’t even sure that she fully agreed much past a head nod, but they were moving to America. She heard all of his grand plans and arguments, but she thought he was just being grandiose as usual. But months later, she was packing carefully selected items into wooden crates lined with some type of thin Mylar liner. Their last name was painted in black with large flat stencils. They would be sent by ship. She was filling out passport applications while he booked plane tickets. She thought of a ten-hour flight with a two and four-year-old, and she was grateful she had trained them so well.

They had six months on a visitor’s visa, and the very first lawyer who heard their case said there was no way they could adjust their status. His criminal record alone disqualified him, besides, they had no claim for asylum, nor did they possess any desirable skills, and even if they could overcome all of that, the line was measured in years, not months, for the inevitable denial. The attorney ended the meeting by telling them to go home, and with a quick handshake, he wiped off onto his slacks. She left that appointment with her face ablaze. She had been lied to and then practically laughed at. She imagined seeing her family again, and her mother cackling at her failure, her ‘I told you so’ eyes glaring into her soul. The familiar sting of shame and failure rolled in her stomach and sent bile to rest at the base of her esophagus.

She quelled her rage to brace herself for his. He didn’t like to be told no. Her fingers twisted around themselves as they reached the sidewalk. He bit a cigarette between his teeth and inhaled as he lit it and passed the pack to her. Her shoulders pulled back slightly when he chuckled.

“Well, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” He exhaled with the tobacco tendrils. “I’ll find a guy,” he said assuredly. “It shouldn’t be hard to find someone who can type up some documents. By the time we need to worry, the girls will be old enough to help us.”

She hesitated but nodded. With each bob of her head, she heard a whisper of reassurance. He wasn’t mad; they could do this, he would take care of it, she wouldn’t have to face her family, no one would know, it would be okay.

“I didn’t want to work for an American anyway.” He continued as they made their way to a bus stop.

He was right, within weeks, the plan came together. She wasn’t sure if he talked to someone to get advice or if he came up with it on his own. They had gone to a bank with a lie that they needed to get money wired over from out of the country. They needed social security numbers to open an account, and the bank simply issued them. There was a big red stamp over their typed name and number that said “not for work authorization,” but a few days later, he showed up with a handful of blank cards. He retyped the information, sent the cards through the laundry a couple of times to weather them, and no one questioned them. No one knew about immigration laws enough to ask about a green card.

They settled in California. He worked in a factory making phone books overnight, and she cleaned hotel rooms during the day. It wasn’t what she had dreamed of exactly, but they had a duplex they rented, they worked opposite shifts, so they were with the girls, and things stabilized. A year later, the oldest was starting school, her with a social security number they had simply made up. She’d never know if things would have been different or better if they hadn’t come to America, but she was proud of her little family, they had started over, what so few can accomplish. Until she came home early one day.

She walked into their bedroom with them both in their bed. He had her pinned on her back with her dress pushed up under her chin, her dark hair splayed across a pillow. They locked eyes, both wild with panic. He just laughed. Only roughhousing, he’d said. She knew that wasn’t what she had seen, but he did have an odd sense of humor. And he didn’t try to hide it. Inappropriate, sure, she reasoned, but certainly nothing sexual.

It had to have been a game. It continued, got worse, sometimes he would make her watch, and he’d roar with hysterics. The kid looked dead in the moment, but she must not have minded too much because she was always around him, hanging off of him. She told him that she was too old to be played with like that now, but he ignored her.

She briefly considered leaving. But where would she go? She couldn’t support herself and two kids on her own. They wouldn’t qualify for social programs with their fraudulent Social Security numbers. For even less time, she thought about going to the police, but surely that would lead to deportation, she had heard the horror stories of that. She caught a thought that flittered through her head, asking if he had done this on purpose, set them up this way for ultimate control. She shook it away; she didn’t want to believe that about him. He did think they were coming here for a better life. He was just stressed by how everything had turned out.

When she had finally had enough, she pulled her aside and explained that she needed to stay away from her dad. She was too old for all of this now, and he wasn’t able to help himself. She explained about modesty and the responsibility of women not to tempt men.

For a while, it worked. She stayed away. She didn’t climb up to sit next to him on the couch. She didn’t ask him to help her build toys. She didn’t draw him the pictures from the Sunday comic. She stayed away and always made sure to have pants on under her oversized t-shirts.

She was still angry about it, but she decided that she needed to forgive them both. Months turned into years, and besides a rude remark here or there he’d make about her body, she thought it was finally over.

Then she found the pictures. He posed her in the same way from all those years ago, but instead of a ladder, she stood in the bathtub, and instead of a can of paint, she held a stuffed animal. Her hands shook as she pulled them from their hiding place one by one. How could he have taken these? A disgusting pre-pubescent body stared back at her.

The weight erased her jawline, the fat in her cheeks pulled down the corners of her Cupid’s bow lips, and worse, it attacked dimples, the ones that everyone loved, got smaller and less deep, less obvious. Even her eyes changed color, and a grayness took over. She wasn’t pretty anymore. She was embarrassing. Lumps and bumps bulged from her stomach, hips, and thighs. The trouble with the beauty being a reflection of her meant now the ugliness was too. It was embarrassing. And even though all that foolishness had stopped years ago, he still looked at her. Still looked at her even though she was disgusting now. How could the two even be compared? She had told her to stay away from him!

Enraged, she banished both of the girls to the basement. She didn’t want to see them anymore. They were to do chores after school while she was at work, and they could come up for food after they had gone to bed. 12 and 14 now, more than old enough to figure it out for themselves. They fractured. Most evenings, she sat alone and watched TV in the living room. He locked himself in the computer room. And they did stay in the basement as they were told.

The late 90s were there. Computers we becoming more commonplace. There were ways for schools and employers to look up documents. Jobs were harder to get. It was going to be impossible for the girls. As would college. They had sentenced them to lifelong hardships and fear unless they got married or returned to a country they had no memory of.

The youngest walked away as soon as she was able. Still a teenager and went to live with friends. Years later, the oldest picked her sister over them. Took her side completely and left them high and dry. She knew what she was doing; she knew how much they needed her. Abandoned. They confronted them about their legal status and their abuse. Such ungrateful brats. Spoiled, unable the appreciate the sacrifices made for them. They didn’t understand the importance of family.

But she did. She gave him everything he wanted her virginity, her home, her country, her family, her future, their daughter, when he said he didn’t want to work anymore she worked harder to support both of them, When he wanted her to go to a swinger’s club and do depraved things she did to keep him happy. She knew about loyalty, she knew about honoring vows. She knew what she wanted, and she got it. And she did everything within her power to keep it.

Age crippled them. They weren’t able to work their odd, under-the-table jobs any longer. They had no choice but to move into their car. Elderly, bodies ravaged by stress, now just waiting to die. But at least they had each other, exactly what they deserved.