Blanche hated her name. She felt as though her parents had named her with the intention of making her sound as though she planned to suck out their life force. That's always how she saw the word. Blanche.
"It sounds like bleach," She told her mother at the age of seven, when she demanded to have her name changed.
"It does not!" The thirty four year old retorted, "Your name is beautiful and so are you." But it did sound like bleach, and so Blanche kept her thoughts on the matter to herself. She could always change it when she got her ID. Her Father on the other hand was much more understanding, but there really wasn't much he could do. He tended to bend easily to her mother's will. When Blanche was old enough to understand what caused people to get married, she wondered how it was possible to spoil ones spouse.
She spent quite a lot of her time in the public library a block from her school. She read stories about mothers who were soft and caring and warm, and fathers who defended their children. It made her think that maybe her mother and father had to get a grip and be what they agreed to be by having her.
She was just the spot of bleach, corroding the relationship that her mother and father had worked so hard to create. Blanche.
