LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 02 - post261
Some of the girls were crying and all of them were in shock. None of them had expected me to take such drastic action. I felt my protector trembling in its need to stop me from hurting all of them, especially Rosie, but I gave it a warning not to try anything, I was not in a mood to put up with its interference.
1355
We must have walked for ten minutes before Cherine came to me. “Why Robert? I hardly recognise you, you would never have hurt any of them like this, before.”
“You mean it is alright for me to be hurt?”
“You are twisting what I said...”
“Am I?”
Dommi came back quickly and pulled Cherine away. The rest of the walk to the station and our ride to the village and walk over to the hotel, nobody talked to me. I could sense they wanted to hold Rosie, comfort her, but were too nervous of my reaction.
Once in the hotel I asked if we could use the dining room which was closed, as we had something to discuss in private. They opened the door for us and we all trooped in silently.
“What is my weakness. Who or what in this world, our own I mean, can hurt me? Who do I have no defences against?”
None of them answered. “I want an answer! You will please answer me when I ask a question.”
“We can Robert.”
“Almost a hundred per cent correct. The correct answer is, all those that I love. If I have no defence against those I love, how do you expect me to handle a situation where I love, but I am not loved in the same way? Do you honestly expect me to make of myself a mat to be walked over?
1356
I have already explained to Rosie. She took what started as playful teasing and then out of a mixture of pride and spite she turned it into something ugly. She acted like a spoilt little brat. She felt safe in the knowledge that I love her, adore her, and she used my love for her to hurt me.
I will no longer tolerate that kind of attitude and behaviour. If I am to give all of myself to you, then I expect you to reciprocate or else I am placed in an unfair position. You all know that if anything were to threaten Rosie I would protect her at whatever cost to myself, but I will not act as her punching bag.
I have declared myself divorced from her. I have not presumed to divorce her on your behalf. You do as you see fit. There are two further things I want from all of you. I love her as my daughter and she knows what I expect as a father, but I do not want her back in my bed again. Once we are back home she sleeps in one of the external guest bedrooms.
The second thing is a request for your help Cherine. It is not pleasant for me to be linked to her, to feel her feelings. I want that link broken as soon as possible. That is all. Anybody has anything to say, say it now.”
I know my girls. If their emotions had not been so deeply involved they might have listened to my arguments, seen some sense in them. The way they were feeling, logic did not have any right of place. They were in a terrible shock at my request for the link to be broken and were openly weeping. Cherine had taken her into her arms as if to protect her. Only Dommi stared at me with a face cold but thoughtful.
“Rosie is still my wife and will remain so for as long as she wants. Breaking the link will not work Robert. Even if you can, Rosie will be linked to us and you will still feel her through us.”
“I expect you to mute it then.”
“I will not. To mute it I have to mute it within myself, that I will not do.”
“You all feel the same?”
“Yes.” Was a word repeated but not spoken freely, it was torn out of them in a fear of what was to follow. They were right.
“I’m sorry. Then I have to mute you all.” I stood up and turned towards the door. Rosie tore herself out of her mother’s arms and rushed to me, blocking me. She fell to my feet and clung to my legs.
“Please Robert, please don’t. I’m sorry, I swear I’ll never do it again. I’ll do whatever you say.” She kept on pleading and crying in huge gasping sobs. I felt she was going into shock and the fear in her was terrifying for me. Desperately I clung to my purpose.
I raised her to her feet and held her by her shoulders. “No daughter of mine grovels at the feet of any man. Where is your pride!”
“I don’t have any, I swear daddy, I don’t…”
“Stop it. Sit down.” I seated her and sat opposite. “If you break a vase, or even if you wiped out the hard drive on my computer, if you disobeyed me out of childishness, anything you did, however wrong, however much it hurt me, you know I would forgive you. The reason would be that I know you love me above everything else.
What you did today, what you have done other times, has been to selfishly treat me as if I only come second, my love and the hurt you can cause in me weapons for you to use. Rosie, you are not the only one who can use those weapons. For once I have placed myself first, above you - how does that make you feel?”
“Like you don’t love me.”
“And it hurts? Why do you think you have the right to do it to me, but I do not have the right to do it to you, am I, is my heart worth less?”
“No.” She would not look at me, her face staring down at the tablecloth and her fingers gripping it.
1357
“There is no easy answer that can make things right between us. It is not a matter of you apologising. Rosie, you do not act this way with me only, you do it to all those who love you. In small ways maybe, and they give in to you. You have within you parts of them. Why have you never looked to see how you hurt them, how small resentments are beginning to snowball. I expect all of you to stand tall, to be proud of who you are, I even sometimes foolishly hope you take pride in the fact that I love you. For some reason it seems to be true of the others, but not of you. Why? I’ll tell you why, because your pride does not make you stand tall, your pride makes you small and spiteful.”
I’d given the girls the wrong impression. They thought as Robert I’d found it impossible to bear the pain of hurting her and that my talk was the beginning of a reconciliation. Rosie looked up into my eyes, a long stare and tears poured down her cheeks again. She had seen the truth and felt despair at my implacable refusal to capitulate and take her back.
“You think of a way to prove to me that you have changed and we may find a way to settle this in another way.”
She spoke with gasps for air through her sobs. “How? There is nothing I can do to prove it.”
“You have a mother who adores you, sisters and wives. Prove to them you have changed, let them feel you love them more than you love your pride. Let them see deep within you and find you pure and then return to me and we will find a way. Otherwise, your only alternative is to carry on as you are and spend a very long life hurting those who love you until the day comes when nobody does. I do not like foreseeing that kind of future for my daughter. Change it.” I stood up and walked out of the hotel.
I did not know where to go, but I knew I had to be alone, my face and thoughts hidden from them. I posted a privacy sign, keeping them out of my thoughts and emotions and walked down a country road until I was certain I would not be seen. Just beyond a low fence was a tree. I went to it and sat with my back to it away from the road. Now the shakes began to slowly build up.
I had kept my thoughts hidden behind a coldness, but the hurt of my Rosie and the girls had been felt in full by me. I still could not believe what I had done, how extreme my reaction had been. The girls would try to blame the war and they were right, but not in the way they thought.
I could still remember the plea in the eyes of Eddie, his attempt to soften us with his story of what Hettie had been like when he first met her. I knew that in his eyes that was how she had been. The purity and sweetness he had then seen had blinded him as he looked at her with eyes clouded by love.
For her to have become what she is now, there must have been the taint of various weaknesses. Pride had to be one of them. The kind of pride that starts off by saying ‘I can’t say I’m sorry, I can’t say I love you’ and refuses to bend its knee for anyone. Soon come those feelings that I deserve it, it is only what is due to me and then all faces become meaningless as all needs become primary, the hurt or pain of others unimportant in the fulfilment of that pride. What could be more egotistical than to see the soul of a child as expendable so as to increase a life span?
I cannot lay down the law for all Cherinians, but for my own family, I have to. To have to fight one of my own as I’d fought Doris would not only ultimately destroy me, it would destroy all of us. The time for sacrifices is now while they are still children and malleable - and dare I say it, while my Rosie still loves me.
I sat there, with back against the tree and there were no tears, just the shaking, my teeth chattering as I tried to bury my feelings and fears. One more souvenir of pain to hide from all my loves.
I am ashamed to say that as I sat shaking, I began to use the imagination of self-pity. I began to imagine scenarios where Rosie turns against me because of today, her heart forever blocked from me. I went off into realms of wild fantasy and such is self pity that it was as if it all had come about and I was soon sobbing. Though even such self-indulgence is the child of real fears, it did not help that deep inside was a part of me laughing at my dramatisations.
To jump ahead for a moment while the subject is till relevant. On our return I did have a private session with Themi. He told me I should not be ashamed of my self-pity and dramatisation. He explained it was natural after the trauma and shock of the attacks. Seeing my own hand slashing my wrist against my own wishes; to bear the panga gashes deep into my body and then be shot, these were not experiences the mind has defences against. For a while, I should expect to find myself weeping at odd moments for no reason, to feel panic in the middle of the night, even waking up in a cold sweat.
For any other person he would insist on therapy, but he felt our Cherinian ways, our sharing will help to ‘dilute’ the effects. I did not confide in him that I am blocking all my loved ones from this turmoil within me, as I did not want them exposed to emotions and fears which might make them less than they are now.
I fell asleep under that tree and woke up in the deep hours of the night. Being a small hotel in a village, I knew the doors would be locked by now, so I sent a message to my girls, telling them to go to sleep and I would see them in the morning.
How was I to know that passions had run high that night and a young girl of nineteen even at that moment lay suffocating in her own blood.
Crickets singing me to sleep
I hope you enjoy reading this long, long story of fantasy, adventure and love.
Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου
(Alexander Zenon Eustace)8th June, 2019
* posted on Steemit: 8th June, 2019
@nikosnitza - @wakeupkitty
So, Robert is the only one who set the rules although he is far from perfect.
Why is Rosie sleeping in Robert's bad if she is Dommi's wife?
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You are confused because you missed out the early part of their lives.
When Robert marries a girl, all the wives marry her also. They all consider the others their daughters, their sisters and their wives -just as they also each consider Robert their husband, father, brother (even their sister at times), and sometimes, their son.
The relationships among them fluctuate according to what is needed by one or by all.
EDIT
Actually, Robert does not pretend to understand why it is that his loves want him to be the patriarchal figure. Anyway, as with Rosie, they are also, in fact, his daughters, and he finds that the girls find comfort in his remaining in charge...though, as you'll see, there are many times that the girls take charge and he obeys.
I find their way of suiting their relationships according to their needs far healthier than when people fix their relationship within some mindset or straight-jacket.
Yes I admit I read backwards. It is one of my habits I always did... do the same with magazines.
But I am catching up. ☘💕
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Νομίζω ότι τώρα συνειδητοποίησα γιατί άφησε την αράχνη να το κλείσει τις δυνάμεις....
Για να μην μπορεί η αράχνη να ξέρει τι αισθάνεται και τι αισθάνονται αναμεταξύ τους έτσι δεν είναι????
Kata kapoion tropo, nai.