Jelsa Mommy: A new kind of heroine

Intro: I haven't written fiction in a long time. 10 years? 20? A couple months ago I was talking to my daughter, @sophieharling, about my frustration with most heroines. It's not that I don't love Wonder Woman and Black Widow. It's just that it seems to me like a very masculine vision of a heroine. I want to see a woman who is a hero because she is compassionate and nurturing, as opposed to because she is a badass warrior. I want a very feminine hero. My daughter insisted I would probably need to write her into existence then. So this is the first chapter in what might possibly become a book. Let me know what you think. This is in very early stages. Feedback is very appreciated. Kind and gentle feedback even more so.

In the dark, dank corner of her basement, Jelsa was laying on as many of her children as she could possibly spread herself over. She was counting the minutes between bombs out loud. At least the kids were learning to count to sixty. Of course that’s if they could hear over the screaming baby. She had to wake him to bring him down here, so his screams were a charming mix of terror and exhaustion. Did they intentionally time the bombs to wake babies and small children? Was this the most insidious part of their strategy of evil? To send mothers to the edge of their sanity? Surely no one wants that. She was trying to cover his ears, comfort him, and count all at the same time.

When she got to sixty again, she looked to her oldest daughter, Alydia. How many minutes was that? She just only had so much room in her brain. Thank goodness for Alydia. She was just sure she wouldn’t get along at all without her. “That was five, mom. Let’s go back up. We’ll go clean so you can get Aubrey back to sleep.” They reasoned that five minutes between bombs meant they were safe to go back upstairs. Of course you never knew, but you couldn’t just stay in the corner of your basement forever either.

When they got upstairs, it was the usual mess. She cringed to see her favorite lamp shattered on the floor. She had been meaning to glue it down to the table for this very reason, but she hadn’t gotten around to it. It had been a gift from a dear friend and was a beautiful antique. Her daughter looked at her hesitantly, slightly afraid of an outburst but mostly with eyes of compassion. Jelsa simply sighed as her eyes filled with tears for this 457 billionth time this week. She carried a slightly calmer Aubrey up the stairs. Thank god for the miracle of boobs. He had nearly nursed himself back to sleep before they even got to her bedroom. She laid down slowly so as not to alert him to the fact that she was trying to lay him down because, you know, God forbid someone ever suggest to a toddler they should actually sleep somewhere other than mama’s arms.

She had gotten to the point of resigning herself to the loss of her lamp without too many tears when she spied a picture of her oldest boy, Jack. Tears flooded her face anew. In the picture he looked so happy, one arm around her, the other around Alydia with all three other siblings somehow precariously balanced on his lap. He was pretty much the best big brother ever. And the best son. So how in the world had he ended up fighting in yet another stupid war? She had been baffled when he told her he was joining the resistance. She absolutely supported the cause but could not support the violence. It was another dead end path as far as she was concerned. He just couldn’t sit around watching as his friends were rounded up and disappeared, and nothing she said could change his mind. She felt the familiar anger rising. How could these unhealthy ideas of manhood have invaded her home? How could a child of hers believe violence was a viable option? When his best friend had been murdered by the police, he just couldn’t resist any longer. Jelsa understood the rage. Chalice had been like another son to her, and his murder had been infuriating, but the violence had to end, of that she was sure.

Every day she worried that Jack would be found and executed like Chalice and so many others before him. This bullshit had been raging on for nearly 25 years. The resistance was almost entirely underground, so she would sometimes hear nothing for a month or more. Sending messages was terribly risky for both of them, but he managed to send brief holomessages periodically through innocent looking package drones. They were always recorded so he didn’t reveal to anyone his current location. Looking at his beautiful smile, she longed for the day when she could wrap her arms around him again.

She yanked her boob from Aubrey’s mouth, and he graciously stayed asleep. She wiped her face on her shirt and went to the bathroom to wash the remaining lovely mix of snot and tears. She stared at the wrinkles and the gray hairs. When had this happened? She wasn’t sure when she had gotten so old looking. She noticed in the mirror that her right boob was still hanging out of the top of her shirt. Her children often had to point it out to her. She had been nursing for the better part of 20 years, so she honestly didn’t notice it anymore. Boobs were no different from hands as far as she was concerned. While most people were of the same opinion, it was still generally frowned on to go around with them hanging out unless you were at the beach or the pool, and probably not just one.

Just as she opened the door to tiptoe out, the doorbell rang. God damn mother fucking son of a bitch. Aubrey opened his eyes and took a gasp of an in breath and then drifted gently back to sleep. Praise the lord. If he had woken up again, she might have had to scream at whoever was on the other side of the door. She might even have to abandon her commitment to nonviolence. As it turned out, the doorbell offender was security patrol. It wasn’t police, so that would mean this was some kind of official but non emergency matter. Her heart was pounding in her chest or perhaps more accurately in her throat. She was trying to contain her terror that her son may have been found out or worse. She was trying to look calm and composed. She wondered if they could see the pounding of her heart. She was momentarily distracted by the sight of several government drones swirling around her house and chatting it up with each other. Rage filled her body, and her cheeks immediately flushed a color that neared purple. “Get those fucking things away from my house!” she screamed. She was expecting a fight from security, but he sheepishly sent them back to his hover car and returned to her removing his hat from his head.

Her hand rushed to her mouth as she gasped. She felt nauseous and horrified and gut wrenched. Her worst nightmares had come true. He began, “Ma’am, I regret to inform you that your husband was unfortunately killed in today’s bombing.” She certainly didn’t want to admit that her overwhelming feeling was relief. It was not her son. At least not today. She loved her husband, but the thought of losing any of her children was totally unbearable. Then she turned to look at her children. All three that were awake and present had heard it all. They were horrified. Her daughters were sobbing, and her son was simply standing and staring. She felt terribly guilty for her own feelings, but they seemed not to notice. The officer seemed to be stuffing his own emotions at the sight of her children and also seemed not to notice Jelsa’s relatively neutral response. “I’ll need you to identify the body right away. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.” He began to pull a device from his pocket and was getting ready to project an image of her dead husband when she stopped him.

“For fuck’s sake, man! The kids are right there. Jeez.” He apologized and waited for her to shut the door. When the image came through, the grief came. It was gross. It was definitely him, though, and very quickly her grief turned to rage. “I can’t believe our own fucking government is just slaughtering people. I’m so tired of living in this tyranny! People can’t walk down the damn street without fear of being blown to bits. I’m done with this bullshit.”

“Well, ma’am. I understand, and we’d like to extend our sympathies. Of course you will receive all of his benefits now. We wouldn’t have to bomb if it wasn’t for the resistance.” He said the word “resistance” as though it was “dog shit” or “chunky vomit.” She bit her tongue and restrained her strong desire to lay into him about his mass media fed, ill informed opinions. Biting her tongue was not her strong suit, but putting her son at risk, especially now, was a very bad idea. She thanked the officer through gritted teeth and told him she would be in to handle arrangements in the morning.

She returned inside the house to her grief stricken children. They were huddled together on the couch, holding each other and crying. She remembered how weary her face had looked in the mirror and figured it looked a whole lot worse now. She sat on the couch and held them all while they cried themselves to sleep. What could she say? Everyone had lost people. They were honestly lucky to have all been together for as long as they had. Most of their friends had lost a parent or a sibling or all of the above. She could only hold them and tell them she loved them and that she was so sorry. Right before falling into sleep, Jade had looked in her eyes and told her he wanted to join the resistance. She started to argue or at least remind him that he was 12 but thought better of it. “I know you do, baby. I know you’re angry, and I’m so, so sorry.”

Jade had probably been closest to his father. They were peas in a pod. Stubborn and ornery but also playful and lively. They were alike enough to understand each other really well and also drive each other totally crazy. The truth was that her relationship with Jose had been shit for a pretty long time. She loved him but she had ceased liking him quite some time ago, and she pretty much sucked at hiding that kind of stuff, so she had basically been a bitch to him for quite a while now. She justified this by telling herself that she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. Of course that seemed like a horribly shitty way to be now. Three children piled on top of her, thinking of how horrid she had been to her now dead husband, she felt deeply, truly sad. Not crying kind of sad. Dark depths of your soul the world is a fucking train wreck kind of sad. And exhausted. She felt horribly exhausted. She was thinking about how marvelous a shot of tequila sounded when she drifted to sleep.

She awoke abruptly to the sound of screaming. She nearly jumped from her skin with that mama’s terror, but she didn’t actually move because three people were laying on her. Realizing she was on the couch and not in the bed, she immediately looked to the stairs. A screaming Aubrey was toddling down the hallway toward the top of the stairs. She quickly untangled from the mess of children, who all went immediately back to sleep, and tried to run to the baby. It was all too fast, though. Her body was still asleep, and her legs just gave way underneath her. She sort of crumpled to the ground. Luckily, Aubrey thought this was the funniest thing he had ever seen and immediately plopped down on the floor laughing hysterically. This gave her time to snatch him up before he got to the top of the stairs. In the chaos, she had forgotten to turn on the force field at the top of the stairs. As she scooped him up, telling him what a turd he was for laughing at mommy falling, he looked at her with those big, round, chocolate eyes and said, “Daddy?” “Sorry, sweetheart, daddy’s not here right now.” She winced as she realized how impossible it would be to explain to a 2 year old that his father had died. He sighed and put his head on her shoulder.

When she laid down with him, she fully intended to go back down and carry the other kids to bed and turn off all the lights, but deep sleep overwhelmed her quickly, and the next thing she knew it was light outside, and Aubrey was pinching her over and over again saying, “gotchu!” She reminded herself that she indeed did love this tiny creature and hugged him close. “Ha! Now I gotchu!” He giggled, and she held him tightly as she tried to mentally prepare herself for what was sure to be an exhausting day. She took him down and turned on the holovision. As he danced around the living room with whatever cartoon characters were on these days, she popped her head in the kitchen and asked Alydia to keep eyes on the monster in the living room while she did a meditation and took a shower. Wincing at her own insensitivity, she turned back to ask Alydia if she was alright. “I’m ok, mom. I’m just numb. I mean, I guess we all knew it was bound to happen. One of us was bound to die, right? This bullshit war is going to keep dragging on and on and on until we’re all dead, I guess. Men seem to be unable to stop killing each other. Anyway, I’m ok. I’m just angry in addition to numb apparently. A little Purple Squirtle Pants will probably help me.” “I’m sorry?” “The show, mom. Jeez. How do you not know that? He’s been watching it every day for a year.” “I don’t know, honey. By the second kid, you start tuning it out, and by the third, you just don’t hear it anymore. Honestly, it’s a miracle I ever hear any of you at this point. There’s far too many of you. Perhaps I’ll have a profound answer for you after my meditation. Did you say Purple Squirtle Pants? That’s the dumbest name ever.”

They decided together as a family that it would be best for Jelsa to go alone to the dead zone. None of them wanted to see their father missing an arm and half his torso. She fed Aubrey and called a hover. It was probably only a year or two into the war when the government realized they couldn’t handle the volume of dead people within the hospital, especially considering how many injured there were. So they made a separate facility where the dead were held, examined, and identified before being sent on to the funeral home or home home. This was now called the dead zone. She and Aiden had both felt strongly that pumping dead bodies full of chemicals to keep them fresh looking for two or three days and then putting those chemicals either in the ground or lighting them on fire was pretty much insanity. Aiden would be patched to the point of presentable and then sent home with her. After 2 days, he would go in a pod and be planted in the forest with a red cedar above him.

It’s no surprise this is a miserable building. Of course the government is always putting on a happy face, and this was no different. The building was bright and light. There were hundreds of flowers growing in the area out front. The lobby area looked like a beautiful atrium. There were plants everywhere with skylights and windows all around. The walls were a beautiful and calming pale blue, but it didn’t matter. The room was filled with horror. Sobbing mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. This is the shit of war, the grief of those who are left behind. She was sad and scared and angry and slightly nauseous. There was a woman at the desk who was crying so hard she actually did vomit, and this didn’t make Jelsa feel much better. Looking at the woman, she could tell she had lost a child. It’s a particular kind of grief that doesn’t look like any other. Two staff members more or less carried her to a private room while another cleaned up puke. It was obvious from his face that cleaning puke was a daily gig. Jelsa felt the terror creep in. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

She went to the front to check in. “I’m here for my husband. To take him home.” The reality set in again, and tears started to well up in her eyes. The woman behind the counter looked at her with compassion, and Jelsa wondered how someone could work here day in and day out. They must have a terribly high turnover rate. Of course jobs were scarce, so maybe people just steele themselves. Or maybe they drink a lot. She said they’d call her back shortly, so she sat quietly and looked around the room. Some were sad. Some were angry. Everyone was tired. That’s another casualty of war, especially one that drags on for 25 fucking years. Total and complete exhaustion. Even the children looked tired. Noticing the mothers there with two and three small children, she felt incredibly grateful for her teenagers. It would have been horrible to have littles in a place like this.

They called her back, and she took a deep breath and asked God for strength and peace. The good thing about preparing for the absolute worst is that most things aren’t actually that bad. They had cleaned him up at least a little. There weren’t blood splatters all over him like there were in the image she had seen the night before. They had put him in the dumbest looking shirt ever, and it made her laugh. He would have absolutely hated the pale green polo, but at least it wasn't covered in blood and guts. Looking at his face, she felt a very strange calm. She ran her hands through his hair and looked at the lips that had kissed her and all her babies a million times. She looked at the hands that had caught all of her babies except Jack. The body was at peace, and it was very clear to her that, though all these things were so very familiar to her, Aiden was gone from the shell. She closed her eyes and could feel his presence. She could hear his voice. It’s all got to change, Jelsa, and you have to help. The overwhelming weight of that statement along with the creeping knowledge of now raising 4 of her 5 children completely on her own left her totally dazed.

In a fog, she rattled off instructions. No, they would not be cremating. Yes, she wanted his arm sewn back on. Yes, she figured that would cost extra. Hell no on the chemicals. Yes she wanted him delivered to the house. Of course she would need dry ice, duh. No, she didn’t need help with the burial. No, she didn’t need help transferring benefits. It dawned on her that dying was quite a hassle. At the end of the barrage of questions, she kissed Aiden’s forehead and then went back to the lobby to answer 847 million questions. As she was slowly dredging through a host of alternately awful and boring questions on the small tablet, the puking mom came to sit right across from her. She was calmer now but with that deep sadness Jelsa had felt the night before with a constant stream of tears pouring down her face. Eventually Jelsa could stand it no longer. She looked up and said, “I’m Jelsa, and I just want to say I’m so sorry.” Trying to calm herself enough to make speech possible, she only managed to say, “Thank you. I’m Eileen,” before melting in a fresh flood of tears. Jelsa immediately went and hugged her. They sat there for what seemed like a long time. Who really knows, though? It could have been 5 minutes or 45 minutes. Eventually neither of them were crying anymore, and Eileen again said, “Thank you. War is such bullshit.” There was no more to say, so they both finished the onerous forms on the tablet.