death is the only ending for the trash queen

Part 5

There are no right or wrong ways to be a parent.

The above is a sentiment made by those who are ignorant of the manyfold wrong ways to be a parent and ought to be pitied for their ignorance and lack of common sense.

That said, Penelope was all too familiar with the wrong ways to be a parent and she could begrudgingly admit that neither of her parents were actually bad at it. In modern terms, Alberu would have been a workaholic father who was affectionate and patient whenever he was off work. Cale would be best described as a mama bear, albeit with her own unique twists to it.

Penelope considered a tragic miscalculation given their outward personas, if there were a modern day custody battle Alberu would easily win.

She supposed this was one of the few things she had to feel grateful to the obnoxious fantasy setting of her second life. Medieval fantasy novels didn't tend to have custody battles where the mother's history of alcoholism disallowed them from custody.

...although, that did mean that the nature of how custody was decided upon was a mystery to her. She'd have to research it thoroughly before proceeding with her plans. There was no way she wanted to be stuck with that lying, cheating scumbag.

Penelope was putting a lot of strength into the allegations against Alberu's integrity as a husband. She had no choice but to. Because while her mind matured and her memories gave her all the fuel in the world to dislike the bastard, the reality was that her childish heart still cried out pathetic things like papa whenever she saw him.

Children truly were pre-programed to love their parents. It just went to show that the parents who had well and truly lost the love of their offspring were the worst type of scum out there. How much must you have abused a child before the biological predisposition for love vanished from the child's heart? It was sickening.

Penelope knew what it was like to be one of those children.

She sat morosely by her mother in silence as the carriage rolled on, an awkward and miserable silence suffocating all within the small space.

Penelope blamed her father. If he hadn't decided to travel with them, the pair of them would have been having a lovely time without him.

Now they were stuck entertaining him. Well, mostly he would attempt to start a conversation with Penelope and she would give him a clipped answer. Then the miserable silence would continue. It was a brutal cycle.

Penelope might not have had the fortitude to continue with this intolerable silence if not for the painfully obvious fact that he had not once made any attempt to converse with Cale.

True, Cale wasn't trying to talk to him either, but Penelope took a particular offense that he thought he was allowed to act all friendly with her when he'd made no effort to understand her mother. Really–how the hell had he spent so long with her without figuring out even the simplest thing about her?

Penelope could attest to her mother's excellent acting skills but there were certainly holes in the act.

If people weren't so persistent in seeing only what they wanted to see, they might have noticed a long time ago that she wasn't the woman she presented herself as. There were too many incongruences in the narrative.

Penelope was biased though. She was the only person in all of existence who saw her mother unfiltered and that alone brought with it a perspective that most couldn't possess.

The tension was intolerable though. Penelope had spent far too much of her previous life stuck in tense situations like this and her preferred solution was to get the fuck away from it as quickly as possible.