she'd already been aware of the space between herself, and those around her, generally speaking. especially when her mother was involved, and with her meaning at all times.
but it rarely bothered her.
if she met a stare that dove deeply there, she'd not been afraid, not did she shirk from the facts laid bare but she didn't broadcast it either, these things.

ansela was crazy.
everyone who had ever met the woman, child, teen, girl, they always said the same.
Sicily, her mother(her poor mother, her sainted hollow greedy husk of a mother) screamed this very fact, in her face, weirdly, on the constant,as she grew. so it wasn't a secret.

not that absurd when you think on it. they had come from different times, you see. so the love that lingered there, in between them, confused and ill gained as it might have been, was the norm, and as you might have guessed, young ansela grew to relish the thought, as she much preferred insanity, abnormality, to the alternative, such as it was.

a daddy's girl, that's what she had been. from the womb till the wound, five years all told, she'd adored and following after searching to climb up on him, to be held, hugged, loved. Salvador Melchizedek DeMar he was marked to be, by moniker and for all she knew the man had hung the moon.
it was Sal who woke up late nights, sitting by her bed, Sal who looked deep into her baby face, and willed her to feel loved, no matter what, even tho Sal had never known peace in love, himself.
theirs was innocence, and merely there. the universe itself. unfolding as it should.
sunny days when they'd both played in the water, and yes, other women had worked their hands into her pruny, little fingers, while they fawned and gushed as she'd held onto them in the pool. it didn't seem strange to her that they smelled like her father, it was comforting, as they were of good cheer, this in much contrast to the vision of her mother, in scary opposition to her usual experience, this felt different,in the arms of a nurturing bosom , that wasn't shaking her little body or hurling insults , no choice but to sit inside those arms, chubby baby arms locked on,holding tight, eyes wide, searching everywhere only for Sal. waiting for rescue,as she would, yes, and for his attention, always with the hope that he'd hold her up high, and smile into her face, gazing at her with smile, with love as she looked down at him, from above. but this was not to be their life for long, of course.

women had not been the usual breadwinners by then, and a change had barely begun those years back when, the vote was only fresh by twenty some odd years. hell. the poor dears had only recently become more than property.
but sal drank, which was bad, and he was a womanizer, which served him worse, till the tongues in town related the facts as all such fuel is for fodder, that the man let his wife work, while he cared for their daughter, in the home. for shame! and he drank and since he didn't use discretion there. he managed to stay only as long as he could bear, five long, cruel years. trying to give the child some sense of warmth, nurturing,...