A Phantom and His Family

Chapter 13: The Young Wife and the Old Widow

Evangeline's POV

There we stood in the attic, Erik's mother and I. No one made a sound, no one moved a muscle. All we did was stare each other down until finally, Miss Madeleine spoke. 

"Look, Evangeline, I understand that you must have been worried about your chil-"

"How?" I abruptly interrupted.

"How, what?"

"How do you understand about my worries? How would you understand anything a mother goes through? Just because you had my husband?" 

"Well, no, I suppose not."

I studied her for a few moments, taking note of her appearance. She was defiantly my Erik's mother. They both had the same pale, white skin, they both shared a widow's peak, and they both could be very vage and cryptic, especially if they didn't want anyone to know anything about themselves. I then took notice of the room we were in.

The lone window was boarded up, leaving only a few open slits to let light in and cloaking the room in semi-darkness. In one corner, there was an small, old, stained bed with one ratty sheet laying on top of it and right next to it was a small box. 

Miss Madeleine, seeing my interest in the box, opened it for me to see what was inside. What I saw was old, ratted stuffed animals, a dog collar with the name 'Sasha' etched onto the metal tag, and small tools such as screwdrivers, hammers, nuts and bolts and wrenches. 

"Erik always had a knack for taking things apart and putting it back together." She said, looking inside the chest with me. 

I ignored her when I saw sheets of paper stuffed inside the box. Curious, I gingerly took out the yellowed pieces of paper out one at a time and looked at it. On each sheet of paper, there were music notes and words written in sloppy handwriting. I kept looking at sheet music after sheet music, most of it unfinished and written sloppily until I got to one finished choral piece written for an entire chorale that had lyrics that were slightly litigable. (A/N: song is above)

As I continued to read the words and look at the notes, Miss Madeleine spoke again. 

"Oh, I forgot about these. Erik had horrible handwriting. You see, he always tried to write with his left hand, but since that was the wrong hand to write with, I had to force him to write the correct way. Of course, he never would listen, so I had to discipline him a lot. He was always a cross, stubborn boy." 

I didn't answer, as I felt my anger begin to rise. 

This broad was punishing Erik just because he was left-handed?  OOOH! If I hear her say something so stupid one more time, I'm gonna-

My train of thought was interrupted as a glint caught my eye. I turned around to see where the glint came from and I gasped in shock.

There, in the far-side of the room, surrounded by small pieces of broken glass, was a shattered mirror. 

Somehow drawn to it, I cautiously made my way over to where it stood. When I was right in front of it, Miss Madeleine's voice rang in my ears. 

"Your husband broke the mirror, you know." 

I looked towards her, not saying a word. 

"He was four years old at the time. Saw his reflection in the mirror, punched it, and vanished into the night. " She continued, coming over to where I stood. 

She noted the angry look on my face and then asked,

"I'm awfully curious, but why would anything that happened to Erik in the past bother you so much? I mean, it's in the past and not your own, so why would the things I say about his childhood make you so upset?"

"Miss Madeleine, do you know what the essence of marriage is?" I asked her, keeping my gaze towards the mirror.

"Yes, well," She began, taken aback by my question, "Marriage is a mutual agreement between a man and a woman. For example, if the husband wants to have his way with his wife and have children, then she would not fuss in exchange for a roof over her head and money in her pocket. It's a rather tit-for-tat exchange really."

I still didn't answer. I simply stared at the hundreds of reflections of my face as she continued to prattle on about how pointless the question was to her and how she was a widow so she obviously would know about marriage. Then, with no hesitation, I reeled my fist back and sent a punch through the already shattered mirror, making more of the pieces fall to the ground and making my knuckles bleed. 

Miss Madeleine screamed in shock, making Erik run up the ladder with superhuman speed. 

"Evangeline!  What happened? Why is your hand bleeding? Oh, my sweet darling." Erik yelled, cradling my damaged fist in his hand and coddling me at the same time. 

"This is what marriage is, Miss Madeleine." I answered as I motioned towards Erik.

"What does that have to do with punching an already damaged mirror?" 

I smirked at her as Erik continued to coddle me. 

"You are right about one thing: marriage is an agreement between a man and a woman, but it isn't just a way to get money or a free pass to have sex without judgment. Oh no, it's much more than that. Marriage is when a man and woman love each other to the point where they want to carry each others burdens as if it was their own. If the wife feels pain, then the husband would share the pain with her. If the husband feels joy, then the wife would share the joy with him." 

I gently pulled away from Erik, much to his protest as I stepped towards her. 

"For as long as we were married, he has had nightmares of what had happened to him. Thank God it's been getting less frequent and even had stopped for a while, but because of everything that had happened to him in the past, he still is suffering in some way. As his wife, I want to help him through his pain as if it was my own, just like he does whenever I feel hurt." 

I then looked down at my fist, knowing that once cleaned, there would be some scarring. 

"Erik's knuckles still have the scars from the time he punched that same mirror and because there were probably glass still inside his knuckles, his hand would randomly spasm in pain. So, his scars are now mine and some of the pain that he goes through on a basis is what I will go through. If not for years , then at least for the next couple of hours." 

With that, Erik took my undamaged hand in his and led me down the ladder to go to our room, but not before I called to her. 

"If I ever catch you hurting my husband, or trying to do something to my kids, then I will not hesitate to hunt you down, splitting open your stomach, removing your large intestines to choke you with while I fashion a jump rope from your small intestines for Ozzie and Tia to play with." 

With no words said, Erik picked me up in his arms and carried me bridal style to our bedroom, leaving Miss Madeleine alone in the attic. 

A/N: Hello my fellow Phantom Phans! 

Thank you guys so much for the 9.87k views, the 810 votes and all of your comments so far. 

You guys make my day! 😘

What's this? Another chapter just a day apart from the last update? Has the woman gone mad?!😱

Well, I simply couldn't leave you guys in suspense after spending over a month not updating. I mean, c'mon, I'm not that evil! 😈

If you guys are interested in the song, then the song's name is called Catch Me and it's written by Charlie Leftridge. 

So, what did you guy think?

Was Evangeline's "demonstration" a little extreme?

Did it get Miss Madeleine's attention?

Vote, Comment, and Share and I'll see y'all next time!

M'kay, bye! 😋