Children of Vice

“What do you want, Dona?”

What a horrible question. Snickering, I answered honestly, “Everything. I want power, recognition, fame, and respect. I want to be a queen, not a princess. I want to walk into a room and watch every person bow their heads to me as I walk by. I want there to be books written about me. I want to be the topic of some university student’s final exam. I want to create change, lasting change. I also want to be a mother and wife…I want to marry a man who’s so in love with me it drives him to the brink of insanity and back again. A man who’s on par with me, who is also respected and feared, who understands my ambitions will sometimes overshadow his. Who can stand being the background to my foreground. I want everything, Nana, and every day I don’t get it I feel like I’m burning on the inside. Like there is a monster inside of me that will continue clawing at my heart until I give it what it wants.”

My father once told me history acknowledges four dangerous women: the woman who gave Adam the apple, the one who cast a thousand ships, the third who opened Pandora’s box, and the fourth…the wife of the Ceann na Conairte.”