Broken Royals

I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but most of the memories I have left of my grandmother are unpleasant. To say Eve was unkind was an understatement. She was downright cruel. She made a sport of pitting others against their friends, their family, and no one was safe from her sadistic schemes – especially not her own husband and children. If you ever spoke a word against her, she would verbally tear you down for daring to challenge her, and then cry victim to your so-called unfair treatment of her.

She suffered a disease of disillusionment, which trickled down the branches of my family tree like a sticky, suffocating sap that choked the budding leaves of change, carved scars into the bark of our memories, and left itself to ooze and fester within the roots of our existence. To extract this disease is possible but painful, which requires you to rip open those scars and dig into the tender flesh to fish out the parasites within, all while looking in the mirror to face the ugliness that festers in the soul.

This is not a story about hurting others for sake of hurt. This is a story for the sake of healing.

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Martha Jeanette was born to Austrian immigrants in the melting pot of New York in the year 1930. She was the second youngest of seven children, her little brother barely taking his first gasps of breath before his tiny soul took flight, and shortly after her father followed him on his departure from the world when she was four years old. Due to her mother working two jobs to support her family, Martha was raised primarily by her two oldest sisters, both of whom were barely adults and struggling to balance adult tasks, sacrificing their own childhood to ensure a safe and normal one for their younger siblings. Martha grew into an unruly teenager, often ditching class to go to the beach to drink beer and smoke cigarettes. She had everyone she knew call her “Eve”; it was a sophisticated name that made her feel more mature than she actually was. She couldn’t wait to grow up and finally take the world for herself – it was what she deserved after all.

She soon crossed paths with a strapping young sailor that returned from Japan after the war. He was a tall, tan, dark haired and green-eyed dream boat named Francis Prince, and he was absolutely smitten with Eve. Three months of a blazing affair was all it took for Francis to pop the question. They were quickly married in a tiny chapel tucked away behind amber leaves of white trees in upstate New York, and Martha legally changed her name to Eve Prince. Not long after, Eve gave birth to her son Francis Jr., followed by Eva, Jeanette, and David.

By all appearances, the Prince family was a happy bunch – it was only when the doors closed and the sun set, with a beer bottle in hand, Eve’s façade had begun to slip. She and Francis would fight, with most quarrels started by Eve, about how much time he put into work or accuse him of sleeping with his secretary – one of which was very true. The children suspected that Francis was saving up his money to leave Eve very soon, until one morning when she dropped him off at the train station for his ride to work. Before he could exit the vehicle, Eve imparted the news to her estranged husband that she was expecting their fifth child. Thus, Francis stayed to make it work and raise his youngest daughter, little Laura – a child that Eve took pleasure in reminding “was born to save a dying marriage”. This was by no means the life she wanted, but the one she chose.

In a full house, Laura lived a lonely childhood; there was a substantial age gap between her and her siblings, who often took part in their mother’s schemes to further isolate her as the problem child. Laura cultivated a loving, close bond with her father – which only seemed to infuriate Eve. The family moved several times across the United States, and Eve coped with each move by increasing her alcohol intake and ticking up a notch in her voice volume when she screamed at her husband. The Prince family was purging itself of life and laughter, with each child eagerly moving out as soon as they were able, leaving a cold emptiness akin to the beer bottles Eve drained each night.

Finally, the fledgling Laura had grown wings to stumble out of the nest and into the arms of a golden-haired, California farm boy – her golden ticket out of the hellscape of being caught between her parents and the contentious situation they called marriage. Unfortunately, Laura did not fly far – her now husband made the ill-begotten purchase of a ranch house that sat on 1.5 acres of land, just next door to Eve and Francis.

Eve began a new daily ritual shortly after that. She would drink beer all day, and yell and curse at Francis when he returned from work. He would lock himself into their bedroom to avoid her, and so Eve in her drunken rage would turn her sights to the house perched just below the hill. She would stumble and crawl her way to the front door, banging and shouting for Laura to let her in, and would then release her pent-up rage in the form of blows on her youngest daughter while screaming how she was the one that ruined her life.

Every night this happened, Laura was alone with her two babies, a boy and a girl. Eve never came over when Laura’s husband was home, and seemingly never had any qualms about her two grandchildren bearing witness to the beatings and screaming she would dole out. Laura never said a word to her husband; she was only grateful that Eve never raised a hand against the babies, and that her beloved father was not the target of her mother’s rage. She could take anything if it was for the sake of her father.

One night, however, her husband came home early. Eve had not heard the rumbling truck make its way up the long driveway, as she was in the middle of her screaming tirade of how problematic her youngest was. It was only until he walked in through the back door and saw her strike his wife, Eve realized she had an additional audience member beyond her toddler grandchildren. She was thrown out of the house that night with a solemn ultimatum – give up drinking or give up seeing your grandchildren.

Eve was not about to be bested, certainly not by some west-coast “hillbilly” – it was Laura that was the problem, not her. She put on the appearances of a recovering addict, attended alcoholics anonymous meetings, with a six-pack of beer waiting patiently in the back of the fridge every time she returned. She dispatched Francis to plead with their daughter and sell her sugar-coated lies of Eve’s recovery. It was this dual performance that won over their daughter again, who was desperate to believe that her mother had improved, and Eve succeeded in ensnaring her grandchildren back into her claws.

It was New Year's Eve in 1996, six months after Laura gave birth to another baby girl, that she went next door with flowers to wish her parents a happy new year. Laura entered the house to find only Eve, and an empty bottle of Miller Genuine draft beer. Eve had then kindly informed her daughter that Francis had gone to the hospital with chest pains that morning and passed away there. Laura could only sit across from her mother and cry, while Eve cracked open another brew and bitterly complained about Francis being the one to leave first and how dare he do this to her.

Laura never said goodbye to her father, the one whom her entire existence evolved around, and at this revelation her life began to crumble around her. She questioned the choices she made as being her own or made in the hopes of approval in the eyes of her father. She became bitter, realizing that she grew up too fast, and began to resent her husband and three children. The disagreements between she and her husband grew, as did the resentment she held for her two ungrateful daughters. Her only son was the prize jewel of her collection and could do no wrong no matter how many times he covered his sisters in bruises and made them cry.

The years passed and the unsettling feelings of displacement grew within Laura, until she finally made a choice of her own volition, which was to attend nursing school. Every day she went to class was a day the children spent with their grandmother, Eve. Even with the children crying and begging not to be left alone with that woman, Laura justified that this was part of growing pains – she had to endure Eve at her worst, her children could bear to spend time with their grandmother now that she was doing better. Laura consoled her children, who complained that Eve was mean to them, by telling them that their grandmother used to be a lot meaner, and they should be grateful they don’t have it as bad as she did. Besides, Laura thought, I should be able to do this; it’s about time I made choices for myself. So the children endured hours of harsh verbal abuse, being called ungrateful, awful children simply for making too much noise, and chastising the girls for not watching their figure with the foods they ate despite being the one to take them for fries and soft serve at the McDonald's just a few miles down the deserted roads. She called them worthless, horrible, spoiled brats, simply because they did not want to do what she wanted. The children endured it all so they could be good for their mother and let her achieve her dreams.

Although Laura now had a degree in nursing, a well-paying job in the emergency room of the local hospital, and some form of autonomy, it still was not enough. She was the successful lives of her brothers and sisters, with their high-paying jobs and beautiful families, and envied what they had. She eventually concluded that it was her husband that could not make her happy, despite draining his savings to buy her a nice new car, as she requested, and decided separation was the only answer.

She left the sodded embers of her first marriage and kindled a new flame with a police officer named Mike, a divorced father of twin daughters, and they married within a year of Laura’s finalized divorce. Eve made it clear that Laura had brought disappointment and shame to her life, for going against vows she made in the face of God, but Laura no longer cared to heed her words – she was finally living for herself. She and her new husband bought a parcel of land to build their beautiful two-story home from the ground up, complete with gorgeous red-brick inlay, a spacious green front lawn, two-car garage and five bedrooms for their children to blend from their previously failed marriages and make their brand-new family together. She relished all the details of her newfound happiness and joy to her ex-husband in nightly emails, with updates he never asked for.

It was not as easy as she thought it would be to make this new family the paragon of American happiness as she planned. Laura’s children were so ungrateful; they barely acknowledged her shiny new husband or all the things she had done for them. Her eldest daughter was especially problematic by stating her desire to live with her father. She saw so much of herself in her daughter that it made her angry. She called her a selfish brat and shut off service to her Nokia cellphone to teach her a lesson, one where she learned that she will always need her mother.

Her rage, however, reached new heights when her ex-husband had purchased a new phone for their unruly teenage daughter and did not bother to share the new phone number. It was easy to get the new phone number from her only son – he was a good boy that did what he was told – and she proceeded to call and text her eldest daughter, screaming at how she was ruining her life by acting this way, and how dare she run to her father for help. It was bad enough that the young fourteen-year-old girl broke down and gave up the venture of separating from her mother until college. Laura made sure her daughter stayed close enough to home, while still having the college experience, by promptly shoving any acceptance letters from out-of-state colleges into the trash bin. Through time and perseverance, the eldest daughter finally clawed her way out.

A few years later, Eve had suffered a stroke that had claimed the mobility of the left side of her body. Despite wasting away in a hospital bed, she refused death’s call for five years after. She cried out every night, begging and pleading with some unknown aggressor in her dreams, and every waking hour she sought to remind her youngest daughter when she was around that she ruined her life. Laura would respond kindly, calling her an “ungrateful sack of skin”, and would cope with the pain of caring for her sick mother by jokingly telling anyone who made the mistake of listening that the family was “just waiting for her to die”. Eve’s eldest daughter, Eva, finally moved her out to a private care facility in Arizona once the family could no longer afford in-home hospice care, and Eve withered under the scorching desert sun knowing she had lost her home and everything close to her in her final days. She died alone in her bed, with nothing but the frigid desert air to carry her soul.

Now Laura’s children have all grown and moved away from home. Yet no matter how far any of the children ventured, mother always hovers close by. She calls them weekly to chastise them for never calling their mother and bemoans them for hating her when they don’t pick up. I am their mother, she thinks to herself, and I am entitled to their time no matter how old they get. She yells and talks down to her husband (as witnessed by her children over the phone), calling him stupid and an oaf. She seeks assurance from all around her that she is a good mother. Laura looks in the mirror each day, and although she sees the passing of time with her hair greying and the wrinkles deepening, she will never see that it is Eve staring back at her.

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Thus is the story of a family that carried venom in their blood. For a family that had the name of regality, they lived in emotional squalor, barely scraping by with select happy memories to thinly mask over the tyrannical monster that ran rampant in their hearts and in the hallways of the home of Eve. Sometimes, I see the shadow of my mother Laura staring back at me, and it scares me. It is the voice of Eve I hear in my head every time I fail or let myself down; she tells me I am worthless, her Brooklyn accent echoes back from my childhood memories. I don’t wish to be royally broken, like my mother and grandmother before me. I strive to be better and live a life of love and compassion, which is proving to cut down on the vines of hatred that once entangled my heart.

I think of my future child – the one Eve and Laura warned me about. They told me that I would understand once I have a daughter like me just how difficult it will be to love that child, and then I'll appreciate what they did. I eagerly await the day I get to prove them wrong, and will thank them by raising my child in a place of safety, trust, and unconditional love.