☾Prologue ☽
☾Queens, New York, 1941 ☽
♥ H A P P Y N E V E R A F T E R ♥
She had a bun in the oven,
It was a hot cross bun.
A bun that was damn hot and angry,
Just puffing and steaming to be someone.
It was finally the end of a cold and particularly snowy Valentine's Day. The sun was setting over the quiet neighborhood of Belle Harbor in Queens, New York, and the city was starting to bustle with excitement as the sky darkened and night fell. While the sounds of horns honking impatiently and the music from Times Square filled the air, the wails of a newborn could be heard for miles. If followed, the sound would lead to a frail baby with the longest eyelashes and a head full of dark brown, almost black, hair. As the female neighbor, a middle-aged woman, stepped out of her house, she cast the mother and child a sad smile.
"I think it's her bedtime, Mrs. Kardia," the woman said. Mrs. Kardia looked up from her baby girl, a fake smile on her lips. Her own dark brown hair was tied neatly in a bun, no stray hairs anywhere. Under her eyes were dark circles, almost as dark as the night sky above them.
"I think so, too," Mrs. Kardia agreed, standing from the rocking swing. "Have a nice night out, Mrs. Erikson." As she turned to walk into her own small, yellow house, she glanced at her child. "Bed-time!" She cooed, blowing air into the baby girl's face. The baby cooed in delight, bringing a small hand up to grasp at her mother's nose. Mrs. Kardia laughed. Nowadays, the joy she ever had was her daughter. She held her child closer as tears blurred her vision.
"If only, baby, if only . ." She trailed off, shutting the door behind her. She flicked on lights in the dark, silent house. The baby quieted her soft giggles as a drop of something wet landed on her cheek. The baby blinked her round brown eyes. "You're right. Why am I crying? Electra, never cry over a man. Never." She lay her baby in her pale pink crib. "Goodnight, little one," she gave Electra a goodnight kiss on her forehead before turning off the light and shutting the door slowly as the baby's breathing slowed and her eyes closed.
It was the 50s, there was war in the streets,
With Mussolini and his gangsters raiding Greek houses,
For blood, and for meat.
The day a mother went to claim what was rightfully hers,
They say a baker could have saved a mother and child from simple hunger.
Mrs. Kardia found herself in the small kitchen. She opened the fridge. Nothing was hardly there, save for a gallon of milk and some Coca-Cola bottles. She closed the door slowly and softly, though she really wanted to slam it in anger. That stupid man – how dare he leave her with hardly any food! She had a child to raise. He wouldn't let her get a job, so what else was she to do? She stared down at her diamond ring. It hung lifelessly and heavily on her finger. She took it off and threw it. It bounced on the wooden floor. She took one last look at her daughter's bedroom before pulling open the medicine cabinet. With heavy hands and an equally heavy heart, she reached for the bottle of red pills.
She sat in her living room, the clock ticking endlessly. She pulled open a small box which held a folded up piece of paper and a pen. She wrote on that piece of paper until the clock struck eight. Finally, she folded it back up – but not before kissing it on the back, leaving a rosy pink lip stain – and put it in the box neatly, the pen back on top. She enclosed the small white present box with a pink ribbon and put it in a drawer, locking it up with a small brass key.
She felt drowsy but nevertheless placed the sleeping Electra in a white wicker basket, draping her favorite light pink baby blanket over top of it. Rubbing her tired eyes, she pushed open the front door and went out into the night. "Goodbye, my sweet Pandora." She whispered, kissing her daughter one last time on the forehead. "I'm so sorry."
There was tradition in the village,
That when a woman is with babe,
She is entitled to a free loaf of bread,
But the baker must see her baby bump on display.
But when the woman went to a baker,
He looked her in the stomach and said,
"You do not look very pregnant to me, you are so thin,
your stomach's flat, lady, your baby is probably dead.
Will not be wasting my bread on liars," He said.
Woman lower her head, face like thunder,
Baker could have saved a mother and child from simple hunger.
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Teen FictionD E A R D I A R Y, M Y N A M E I S E L E C T R A H E A R T . . ➳ Life + death of Marina's lovely but tragic character, Electra Heart. Some of her songs from The Family Jewels and early songs (such as from Give Me The Money! or Mermaid vs Sailor...
