Daddy's House (DISCONTINUED)

Lunch

Tw: mentions of ableism, divorce

Claire was pacing back and forth in her room, trying to decide on what she should have for lunch. Toast would be nice, but she had eaten the entire loaf of bread within a few days, and toast always took a while to cool down before she could eat it.

Nachos sounded delicious, but she couldn't have sour cream or cheese, as she was lactose intolerant, and consuming even the tiniest piece of a pepper made her tongue feel like it was on fire.

After a couple more minutes of pacing, she decided that she would eat the tortilla chips without anything on them, as that wouldn't upset her sensitive palate, and made her way to the kitchen.

She spotted a bag of tortilla chips on the counter, and grabbed it; before she could finish opening it, her mother stormed into the room, clearly irritated about something.

Closer inspection revealed that she was in the middle of a heated phone conversation with her ex-husband, who apparently wanted to have Claire stay over at his house a few days earlier than the date they had decided on.

"Claire's my daughter, not yours!
Just because she looks more like you doesn't mean that you can just claim her as your own! And what gives you the right to suddenly change up the schedule I carefully planned out!?"
Diana shrieked, gripping the phone with such force that her knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"She's not just your daughter, Diana! She's ours, and I should be able to see her more!" Michael responded, causing Diana to roll her eyes and groan loudly.

Claire whined and covered her ears, wanting to leave the room because of the noise, but also wondering where the conversation was going to end up. She decided to stay.

"Claire hates you and you know that!
All you want to do is find a 'cure' for her autism!"

After hearing her mother say that, Claire bolted out of the room, not wanting to remember the torture that her father put her through; she soon came back in upon realizing that she forgot to bring the bag of chips with her. In the brief moment that she was in the kitchen again, Claire heard little snippets of her parents' argument.

"As long as she has that.. that disease, she's a burden to our family!"
Michael roared. Even though she hadn't seen him in a while, Claire could still vividly remember what her father looked like when he was mad: his face flushed red, with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow, spewing out venomous insults and curses as he ground his teeth together.

"She's not a burden, and she's not your daughter!" In her anger, Diana's voice had risen up an octave, making her already high-pitched voice sound like the shriek of a banshee. "Stop talking about us! There is no more 'us!' Whatever we had has been gone for 8 years! Claire is part of my family, not yours!" She bellowed before hanging up the phone.