The Maid

THE MAID
She hated herlsef most of the time, hated her family and hated the fact that she might Iive long to endure, not to continue, to endure the never ending suffering her ancestors had so foolishly started. Her mom is her biggest nightmare. Yes, she's everything a child needs in a mother - caring, hard-working, sweet , so kind - but she is big-hearted, 'a good thing' some would say, but not in this case, not in their case. Her mom is so strong and that's her weakness, this just confused Olivia the more - how can strength be someone's weakness? Olivia knows she is as strong as her mother, but it's a totally different kind of strength. Her mom's strength has been the source of the food she eats everyday, meanwhile her own strength has cost them two jobs. Regina - Olivia's mom - could tolerate anything and Olivia couldn't quite understand it. Insults from their bosses, their bosses' children, hell, even insults from their bosses' pets. She has a heart so big, she can be scolded unnecessarily this minute and the next, she is celebrating wholeheartedly with the same people that scolded her. It baffled Olivia, because she couldn't bring herself to do that and sometimes she thought she was not her mother's daughter because of this. The thought of not being her mother's daughter - which is unbelievable, she is the younger version of her mother - always gave and still gives Olivia this beautiful sensation that overwhelms her with guilt. Imaginations flooded her mind most of the time, blurred images of her in a big glass house, with no maid, - she couldn't afford the temptation of treating people the way she was treated - just her with her wealthy, then she would snap right out of it, back into her sad reality, when she is summoned.
Olivia grew up in a small, remote village in Pennsylvania, surrounded by loving people, some were not even family. Everyone knew everyone there and they were happy. Perhaps, it wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't come from a family of 'helps'. When Olivia was little, her mom told her stories of what happened at work - of course these stories were carefully filtered. Olivia enjoyed the stories and couldn't wait to be sixteen so she could join her mom in "helping" people. On the night of her sixteenth birthday, her family and the village celebrated with her. There was a huge fire set up in the middle and they danced around it. She was gifted with clothes which the women in the village couldn't wear anymore and thought it would fit Olivia perfectly. Her father gifted her his ring, which his father gave him, and his grandfather gave his father. The bright ocean-blue colour of the ring amazed her because it had been through generations but never faded. Her mom gave her a necklace she handmade using beautiful tiny beads, with 'OLIVIA' at the center of it. She hugged her parents so tight and began to cry. She put the ring her father gave her in the necklace, in between the 'l' and the 'V' of her name. Her father helped her wear the necklace, she looked in the mirror her mother was holding, with shaking hands, in front of her and smiled, she looked like a princess, she felt like a princess. The next day, Olivia's first day of work, she woke up feeling more excited than ever. She had always wanted to get out of the village, get into the city and breathe the air there, air full of hopes and dreams. She has never been ashamed of the life she lived, never really ached for more, infact, she loved her mother's job and couldn't wait to join her mother on her first day and every other day.
They walked, hand in hand, Olivia and her mother, talking about irrelevant things, picking up flowers, giggling quietly that Olivia felt the squirrels were curious about their discussion and she loved it, this closeness and safety she felt with her mother. Regina could be anything Olivia wanted - a friend, a sister- anytime she wanted. Olivia proud to be Regina's daughter, mostly because of her outstanding bea

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