“So this is suppose to be a mental disease?” Maryse asked watching the tv that Catarina had talked her into buying for their bedroom. It was sometime around three in the morning and she knew that she had to go to sleep. She had an early meeting with Alec tomorrow morning and it wouldn’t do her any good to be dog tired well she talked to her son about downworlder relations.
But, well she couldn’t stop. Her sky blue eyes were glued to the tv as she watched the mundanes and one or two downworlders struggle with hoarding. A term she hadn’t heard of until after dinner when Catarina had dragged her into the bedroom and forced her to watch a marathon of a show called Hoarders and when that was over Catarina had switched it over to another program on another channel by a different name.
It was the same thing. People who filled their homes up to the ceiling with things they didn’t need and then struggled to take out one thing. Even if it was the smallest of things that they haven’t seen or used in decades.
Catarina and the people on tv had insisted that these people had a mental illness. Some kind of OCD which seemed even odder to Maryse considering all she knew of OCD was people continually cleaning over and over again until their fingers bleed. It seemed like Hoarding would be the opposite of the disease and not an form of it.
But then again what did Maryse know? She had never really learned anything of mental illness. When she was a child she had been taught to hide those kind of things. Any quirk or indication that you didn’t fit in with everyone else around you was a weakness, a flaw that singled you out from the herd.
Maryse watched slack jawed as a new episode began and the screen panned across a home filled with garbage. It wasn’t the first person that she had seen that collected garbage or just used their floors like a trash can but still every time Maryse saw a house like that she couldn’t help but be shocked.
“You tell me,” Catarina yawned stretching out against Maryse’s side and nuzzling her face against her neck. Frowning Maryse wrapped her arm around Catarina and shivered at the sight of hundreds of cockroaches scurrying after the woman’s poor daughter lifted a picture off of a wall. Her stomach turned at the thought of living in a house with that many bugs. With that much garbage. That was just that unclean.
To just live in pure trash. Maryse couldn’t understand that. But then again Maryse wasn’t sick, at least not in that way so she supposed there was no real way to truly understand it. Even if she had the most open mind in the world.
“You know,” Maryse began pulling her wife in closely. “The more we watch these shows the more I think of my father.” Catarina pulled her head off her chest and gave her an almost sympathetic look.
“Your father? Not a man we speak of often. If ever.” Catarina said. She couldn’t remember, in all of their time together, Maryse ever bringing up her father. She spoke of her brother Max fondly and her mother with distaste but now that Catarina was really thinking about it she was pretty sure Maryse had never brought him up.
“George Charles Trueblood.” Maryse smiled sadly focusing on her fingers as she tapped them against the blanket. “He died when I was very young about when I was four or five. He went out hunting werewolves and never came back.”
“Oh, Maryse I’m so sorry.” Catarina said softly reaching forward and running her slim fingers through Maryse’s inky black hair. It felt odd offering condolences to Maryse for a father she had lost over forty years ago. But what else do you say when someone says something like that? Tough luck kid better luck next time?
“I don’t remember much about him just that he kept so many things.” Maryse said softly her voice somewhere between awe and realization. “I remember it piling up to the ceiling and every day he would bring something new into the house and never taking anything out. My mother use to hate it and him and every time she tried to clean he would lose his mind. My brother Max would whisk me away when they would fight...I guess I remember more than I thought.” She blushed her voice dying as she spoke.
“Oh baby.” Catarina said finding herself at a lost for words. Pulling herself up she wrapped her arms around Maryse and pulled her into a tight hug. “That sounds terrible.” Maryse shrugged pushing down the sudden wave of grief that crashed against her. She didn’t want to start crying over a man she’s been avoiding thinking about for the vast majority of her life. But a Catarina hug had the power to crack you open and start spilling out the things you’ve been successfully bottling up for decades.
“Yeah well I’m positive that when he disappeared my mother wasn’t too broken up about it. I never saw her cry. In fact when he was gone he was gone. It was like he was never there in the first place.” Maryse said softly. “She was probably relieved that he was gone.”
“Your mother…”
“Was not the best person in the world but she taught me how to cook and clean and...she wasn’t a complete tyrant.” She shrugged. “You know I remember my mother and brother would clean the house out at night because my mother was afraid of what our neighbors would think but everyone knew. The moment there was something slightly off about you or your family everyone knew you were different.” Maryse was telling this story with a small sad smile on her face. Her eyes were getting misty and she was beginning to fidget.
Maryse didn’t cry often. Cat could count on one hand how many times her wife had cried and almost every time had been about her youngest son Max. Still the more Maryse talked about her early childhood the harder it seemed to be getting.
And Catarina understood. Between her neat freak of a mother, her hoarder or a father and her brother who was the center of her world just up and abandoning her Catarina could see how Maryse had made a few mistakes in her lifetime. Not that they were okay but Catarina could understand. And Catarina certainly understood how her wife was a tad bit of an emotional wreck well hidden behind such a beautiful commanding face.
“And after he died we had to wash and clean every inch of the home down to the bone.” Maryse said focusing her eyes on the tv. “She was so militant about it and now I understand, she had never wanted to go back to that.” She said pointing at the tv screen as the camera panned around a house filled with junk. “I guess I can understand that.” Catarina nodded and began to rub her wife’s back. The things you learn when you stay up late a night watching other people’s misfortune.
“I wish you would have told me this sooner.” Catarina said softly causing Maryse to frown and glanced up at her wife.
“Why? So you could know what you’re buying before getting it?” She asked trying to flash Catarina a smile but it came out more as a grimace. The warlock frowned and rested her forehead against Maryse’s.
“Don’t be silly.” She said softly. “I just simply mean that you shouldn’t keep those things bottled up. It’s not good for you it’ll make you-”
“Mental?” Maryse asked causing Catarina laugh despite herself.
“Well in a way but you know what I mean. The other day you just told Isabelle not to hold in her grief about Max didn’t you? Don’t you think that should apply to you as well?” She asked softly cause Maryse to sigh.
“I know. But it’s easier to tell someone that then to do it yourself.” She said softly. “Anyway it’s getting late we should probably go to bed.”
“Maryse-”
“Yes?” Maryse asked reaching forward and grabbing the remote shutting off the tv so she could shut off this conversation.
“We should talk about these things.”
“I know. Perhaps tomorrow.” She said having no intentions of ever bringing up her father and his trouble with collecting things ever again. Catarina sighed and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips.
“Well. Whenever you’re ready to talk you know I’m here.” Catarina said softly sinking back into her bed and curling up to her wife.
“I know my sweet. I know.” Maryse said getting herself comfortable and quickly falling asleep.