Dusting off my old dress that smelled like a combination of Windex, Comet, Tide, and bleach, I tried to ready myself for the long, treacherous day ahead. My stepmother refused to let me do my laundry with the washing machine in the house, so I had to either go to a laundromat or wash my clothes by hand. I didn't exactly get paid even though I waited on her and my stepsisters hand and foot, not getting treated much better than a slave, so I washed my clothes in the tub. My stepmother also forbid me from using the dryer or drying my clothes on a clothesline outside, so I had to get one of those wooden drying racks that I put in the laundry room, causing my clothes to smell stuffy all the time. I used this particular dress as the one I wore when I cleaned because it was the oldest and grossest out of all my clothes. I didn't like to wear pants when I cleaned because the material would stiffen around my knees and cut off my circulation, making it incredibly difficult to scrub the floor to my stepmother’s standards.
I grabbed my cleaning tote, and sighed, taking a deep breath as I reluctantly placed my hand on the doorknob of my room, twisting the handle and opening the walkway to my misery. I shut the door behind me and walked down the long hallway that led to the ‘better’ part of the house, as my stepmother put it, since she had banished me to live in the servants’ quarters. She was very intent on keeping her reputation in tact which meant that I was never to address her as 'mother' in front of any guests who were at the house.
Like I'd ever call her mother, I'd be more likely to call her bitch. To the public eye, I was only to be known as the help. No one would ever know that I was secretly Cynthia Lynn Demanche, the heiress to the Demanche fortune. I am fairly certain my father's fortune is the reason he is dead.
Continuing down the hallway, I thought of the days when I was young and able to enjoy my childhood, instead of how I feel now, which is an old person living in a young body. My spirit had been crushed countless times over the years since my father’s death, and I suffered from many sleepless nights, often having suicidal thoughts plague me. The times I was able to fall asleep, I dreamed that same horrible dream I’d had last night. Whether with sleep or without it, my soul was not at peace. The only thing keeping me alive was the thought of how overjoyed my stepmother would be if she found out I was dead, and I refused to give her that satisfaction. No, I would fight to stay alive and perhaps one day see my true place in society restored. I hadn't the slightest inkling as to how that would happen, but I was only sixteen, and even if I didn't feel like I had my youth, I was smart enough to know it still existed.
Making my way into the beautiful, elegantly decorated, non-stuffy hallway that led to my stepsisters’ bedrooms, I braced myself as I walked to Jacqueline’s room, knowing that she was not a morning person, and she wouldn't be pleased to see me. My stepmother always insisted her daughters wake up at eight o’clock, so I knew she would no longer be sleeping, but that didn't change the fact that she hated waking up that early. I knocked on the door, even though I was expected to go into my stepsisters’ rooms every morning and clean. However, just opening the door wouldn't be acceptable because they would whine about it later and I would get in trouble.
“Ugh, WHAT?!”
Jacqueline. Her ugly face glared back at me as the door flung open, a massive scowl twisting her lips into an unseemly maze on her face, eyebrows turned down towards her nose, and the coldness in her beady green eyes boring into my core. She had both hands on her chunky hips, sticking her chest out, trying to intimidate me with her size. I didn't actually mind that she was heavy, but her attitude made me roll all of her lesser qualities into one, plus the fact that it had been
her who had given me the nickname I so despised.
“Oh, it’s YOU. Well, what the fuck are you waiting for? Get in here and clean my room, it’s disgusting.”
She moved out of the way, condescendingly waving me in, even though I had already started entering her room, wanting to get this over with as fast as I could. This particular stepsister was a slob, and she left piles of shit everywhere, in the form of everything, clothing, lip gloss, hair brushes, toys, food, plates, to go cups, and trash, not to mention anything else she could put on the floor. If I wasn't here to clean, I was pretty sure she would be a hoarder. I snickered to myself at that thought, imagining her on an episode of Hoarders, while people yelled at her to clean up her shit.
“What the hell is so funny, Cinderella? You idiot? You actually think cleaning is fun? Ugh, how gross.”
Jacqueline put her hand over her mouth and pretended to throw up .
“Oh nothing, Jacqueline. I just think it’s funny that your room looks like it could show up on an episode of Hoarders. You
need me to clean your room every morning so you don't get buried underneath all of your shit.”
“Why you
little bitch!”
Jacqueline picked up a tube of lip gloss and threw it at me, stomping her feet and throwing a tantrum. I ignored her, knowing she was harmless and that she couldn't really hurt me because she was weak, both on the inside and the outside. I laughed again when the thought crossed my mind that the only way she could stun me was if she sat on me, which was followed by another tube of something hitting me on the arm. This was my regular routine with Jacqueline in the morning, I would clean, and she would throw things at me for various reasons, usually it was me mouthing off at her, or ‘being too slow’ or anything else that didn't make any sense.
I picked up all of Jacqueline’s clothes and put them in her hamper, not understanding why she insisted on throwing them all on the floor when she had a perfectly good place to put them. Rolling my eyes, I wiped her bathroom mirror off, cleaned her sink, toilet, and shower, then mopped the tile floor. I replaced her towels with fresh new ones, running my fingers in the soft plushness of them, wishing my bathroom had towels as nice as these. Instead, I was given the rejected towels, the ones that were thin and scratchy. I checked her shampoo and soap to see if they were running empty or not, and I saw that they were plenty full.
Being done in the bathroom, I went out to her bedroom and continued tidying up, putting things back in their proper place since she had a really good habit of misplacing what seemed to be everything in her room. I straightened up her vanity, wiping down the surface, doing the same with her nightstand. I wondered why it was so quiet, but then I realized that she had already gotten dressed and left the room.
Grateful for the peace and quiet, I made Jacqueline’s bed and then moved on to her closet, picking up the clean clothes she had dropped while carelessly sifting through her clothes trying to find something to wear. I matched her various pairs of shoes together and placed them on the shoe rack that was in the closet. I closed the closet doors, walking towards the bedroom door and then turned around to survey my work. Perfect. Even though I hated slaving away like this, I liked the feeling of knowing I was a damn good housekeeper, despite no one ever showing appreciation for my skills. I shut the light off and made my way to my second stepsister’s room, which was directly across the hall.
I knocked on the door, like I did for Jacqueline, but there was no answer. Relieved, I opened the door and began a similar cleaning process as I had for Jacqueline, the only difference being that Genevieve’s room was much cleaner, and all I needed to do was wipe surfaces, replace linens, and straighten a few things. As I wiped down Genevieve’s vanity, the one that matched Jacqueline’s perfectly, except for the slop Jacqueline insisted on covering it with, I noticed a picture of her and my father on it. I was struck with a sense of disgust and jealousy, as I was plummeted back into the horrible memories of that time.
It was true that my father loved me, and I know he did, but there was a time when we were not as close as we should have been, which is another thing I felt also led to my father’s downfall. The first year after my mother left us, citing we were holding her back from her true dreams, my father fell into a grave depression. Even when I was little, I could sense his sadness every time he picked me up to interact with me. I always admired him because he never neglected me, even though he could have. Two years after my mother left, my father started dating again, never giving up on finding love. He went through a few relationships, but most of the women never stuck around because they couldn't accept that he had a child already. I guess it was just that they didn't want children with him unless the child was the product of them and my father.
Three years after my mother left, my father met
her, the wretched woman who would eventually,
I believe, become his murderer. I was still little when they met, about four years old. She was nice at first, to both my dad and I, but eventually things changed. I am guessing my stepmother thought I was too young or dumb, to understand what was happening, but I already knew how to talk, and I could sense when things felt wrong.
The rough patch between my father and I happened when he first started dating
her. After she started coming over a lot, he began to neglect me, only feeding me and taking care of my well-being, but failing to spend time and play with me. I became withdrawn and sullen at this time because I missed my daddy. One day I saw him hugging Genevieve, who was the same age as me, snuggling her in his neck the way he used to hug me, and I cried. That must have been what this picture was that was on Genevieve’s vanity. I had no idea someone had taken a picture of them, but I wasn't surprised because that day I saw them, I didn't stay long after. I just had to run, so I ran to my room and kicked my dollhouse, mad that it felt like my daddy didn't love me anymore.
I shrugged off the small bad memory of my father, the only one I had, and managed to think of good times with him again, while I quickly finished cleaning Genevieve’s room. I made her bed and then exited, shutting the door behind me. I dropped my cleaning tote on the floor in shock when I heard a shrieking voice near me, one that I had not expected because I didn't know she was standing outside the door. Why she was so close to me, invading my personal space, was beyond me.
“WHY are you
not done with cleaning MY daughters’ rooms yet? We are all starving in the kitchen!!
I rolled my eyes at my stepmother again, this time not letting her see that I had done so, as my cheeks were still sore from the morning slaps she had given me. The last thing I needed was to bring more unnecessary pain down on myself. My stepmother said nothing more as she saw that I was going in the direction of the kitchen, and I knew that most of her questions were rhetorical, designed to get a rise out of me so she would have an excuse to slap me around. As I made my way to the kitchen with her stupid slippered feet shuffling loudly behind me, I pondered how my father could have ever fallen for
her.
