The Seduction Of Claudia by Antoinette Chauvet Page B

state of fury. She began pacing back and forth in the living room, uncaring about her nakedness. Blind rage was upon her and she began throwing and breaking things. Ashtrays, vases and the small tokens of affection she'd received from her lovers over the years smashed into a thousand tiny pieces on the varnished wood floors and plaster walls.
    Looking wild and untamed, she castigated her departed lover for his numerous faults. Claudia watched her mother from the hallway, flinching every time something else was broken. Eventually, Marcheline wore herself down and passed out, sprawled naked on the couch in a drunken stupor. Claudia had covered her with a blanket, then crept carefully around the mess on the floor to the refuge of her own bed.
    The next day, Marcheline subsided into silence. She lingered in a despondent, nearly catatonic, state that lasted for a couple of days. She didn't say a word and wouldn't have dressed or eaten had Claudia not coaxed her into doing both. Marcheline simply sat and stared into space. And at night, she prowled the house. Claudia had woken during the night and found her roaming, ghostlike, tracing and retracing her steps. She had guided Marcheline back to bed and stayed with her the rest of the night. Though she felt frightened and confused, Claudia had kept up appearances. She cared for herself and Marcheline for the three days of her mother's depression, going to school each day, but rushing directly home afterwards.
    Claudia came home from school on the fourth full day since the breakup to find that Marcheline had returned to a semblance of herself. She was nicely dressed, her hair was coiffed to perfection and she wore the makeup she customarily wore. She behaved somewhat normally, yet her eyes shone with a manic brilliance. Her brittle smiles and shrill, forced laughter gave lie to the normalcy she had hoped to project. In a newfound quest for domesticity, she had prepared some of Claudia's favorite Martinican dishes and cleaned the house. She feigned interest in Claudia's activities and acted as though the past few days hadn't happened. With watchful eyes, Claudia observed her mother's manner and thought it better not to mention what had happened with the man. Marcheline's mask had eventually cracked and she had vehemently promised Claudia that she would do better next time to find a Papa for Claudia who loved them both enough to stay with them forever.
    That wasn't the only time Marcheline succumbed to depression. Each time a man left, he had seemed to take a little piece of her mother with him. As she had aged, there had been fewer men of the type she preferred. The wealthy, well-bred types no longer saw the exotic in Marcheline; they rather saw an aging immigrant woman, whose thick Claudia accent and broken English had ceased to be charming. She still held allure for some men, but they were men she felt were beneath her. She had gone back to Martinique several years ago with her pride in tatters and had married the man she would have married if she hadn't met Claudia's father. Marcheline said she was happy, but Claudia knew that she had been desperate for the attentions of a man -- any man. She suspected that her mother didn't have respect, or even liking, for the man she'd married. When Claudia had last visited her mother and stepfather on the island, Marcheline had glittered and glowed brilliantly when people were around to observe it. Indeed, friends and family proclaimed the newlyweds to be proof that true love would always triumph, no matter what people tried to do to change destiny. In unguarded moments, however, Marcheline looked old and tired, weighed down by grief and defeat.

    Claudia was well aware that she carried wounds from her childhood; she even understood their genesis. But damned if she could suppress the fear she felt at the thought that she might make herself vulnerable to the kind of dependency and loss her mother had repeatedly endured. She monitored herself