In the beginning, I was exactly what he wanted. I stood where he placed me. I wore the heavy silk robes that scratched my brand-new skin. I smiled when he told me to smile, and I kept my eyes fixed on his face. He called me his greatest creation. He did not call me his wife; he called me his masterpiece.
The shift happened when my daughter, Paphos, was born. As I held her tiny, warm body against my chest, I looked at her soft skin. I realized that he would try to carve her, too. Not with a iron chisel, but with his voice, his rules, and his suffocating expectations. He would want her to be a silent statue, just like he wanted me to be. Galatea - Madeline Miller.epub
"I am alive," I repeated, my voice growing stronger, louder, and steadier. "And I am leaving." In the beginning, I was exactly what he wanted
I walked out of the heavy wooden doors of his estate and stepped onto the dirt path. For the first time in my life, the ground beneath my feet felt real. The air smelled of salt and wild herbs. I smiled when he told me to smile,
I was no longer a masterpiece on a pedestal. I was a mother, a human, and finally, completely free.