gender & pronouns: cis female & she/her.
neighborhood: bighorn hills.
occupation: jam and fruit vendor at downtown farmerâs market.
trigger warnings: domestic abuse, alcohol abuse, death.
Tallulah Briggs was born to two crazy, young, fun-loving traveling hippies on June 7th, 1988 in Eugene, Oregon. Tallulah is always unsure where to tell people she was raised. Once her mom was cleared to leave the hospital, her parents stocked up their van and hit the road again, their eager spirits refused to let a child deaden their spiritual trek across the earth. From ages 0-5 Tallulahâs days were either spent in a van, on her fatherâs shoulders at music festivals, or having her face artistically painted by her mother and all of her closest friends.
Once Tallulah reached age 5 her mother began to share concern with her father about settling down. Theyâd met one another on the road and theyâd experienced it for what had been going on almost 8 years, 5 of those including Tallulah. Although, her mother adored the traveling lifestyle, she had also dreamed of living her life in a rural area. Over the years her mother and father had saved enough picking up hitchhikers and working other odd jobs to make this dream come true. Tallulahâs father wasnât as excited to settle down and stop traveling but he knew it had to be done and heâd do just about anything to keep her mother happy at the time. It took absolutely no time before her parents decided on bighorn hills, it was perfect.
Tallulah was unimaginably spunky and smart in her younger years. She loved life at school and at home. Her dad had his own yard work business and her mother began her work on her own jam and organic fruit company which she named directly after her daughter âTallulahâs basketâ. Tallulah remembered coming home from school every single day and helping her mom tend the garden and place labels on the jam jars, sometimes even accompanying her mom on local deliveries in summit lake and claret park. Then, on the weekends sheâd spend her time lallygagging around town with her father while he wasnât working.
Tallulah couldnât see life any other way, that is until she hit the age of 8. This is when she began to notice a change in her fatherâs attitude. The pressure of the need to provide began to hit her father hard. He was so used to being free on the road. It was what he had revolved his entire life plan around, this emptiness he felt slowly started to turn into resentment. Not only for Tallulah, but for her mother. He blamed both of them for making him settle down. Tallulahâs father coped with this by drinking all of the time. Those weekends that heâd spend with Tallulah transitioned into late night weekends at the bars and early morning fights with her mother. The fights sometimes even turning physical. This terrified Tallulah, seeing the man who was once her gentle hero become a truculent monster right before her eyes. It felt unreal.
Her fatherâs drinking got worse as Tallulah reached her preteen years. Which began negatively impacting her school work, which led to her lack of motivation to continue school. Coping mechanisms were clearly not her families strong suit so instead of reaching out for help, at the age of 14 Tallulah began skipping every single day. Sometimes not returning home for days on end simply to escape the toxicity that was her home. One day Tallulah returned home to find her mom bruised and unconscious on the kitchen floor with the back door left wide open. Tallulahâs heart sunk, her angel lie there motionless before her eyes and all because she was off being selfish and thinking of her own needs rather than being there to protect her mother from the demon that was her father. Tallulah promised herself that sheâd never be anything like her father and if her mother were to pull through this sheâd put protecting her mother as her top priority.
Luckily, Tallulahâs mother was able to be helped. Tallulah and her mother were questioned by the police at the hospital and they both used this opportunity to come forward about what had been happening to them at home. But her mother decided against pressing charges. She just wanted to move on with her life and to keep Tallulah safe. From that day forward Tallulah never saw her father again. She had no idea what happened to him or where he was and because her parents had never been married there was no legal paper that binded her mother to her father. Once her mother got back on her feet Tallulah got more serious about life and graduated from high school. She had zero interest in attending college and every interest in being by her motherâs side and furthering the progress of the family home business âTallulahâs Basketâ, her mother was still a hippie at heart and was in full support of this decision. So she helped Tallulah move into her own place in bighorn hills and got her familiar with the ins and outs of the business.
Tallulah was of course more equipped with todayâs technology and was able to help her mom expand her jam and organic fruit business to both an online shop and providence peakâs local downtown farmerâs market. After a few years of consistent sells Tallulahâs mom found it appropriate to give half of the ownership to Tallulah as she realized she was becoming more and more responsible. Now had you asked Tallulah fresh out of high school if Tallulahâs basket was all she wanted to do for the rest of her life she would have said yes. But going back and forth from the downtown farmerâs, made her realize just how much sheâd been missing out on. She has been a bighorn hills native since age 6 and for awhile she told herself thatâs where sheâd stay. But the rush of the downtown scene is just where she wanted to be. But she couldnât bring herself to tell her mother that. So she took half of the ownership and has been running the business with her mother ever since.
A few months ago Tallulah got a call from a number that was linked to Eugene, Oregon. She hadnât heard of that place apart from the stories her mom would tell her relating to her birth. When she answered the phone she was met with a concerned soft female voice. That voice was the voice of someone who said they were the widow of her father. They said that Tallulah was the only next of kin that she could find to him. Her father had died of liver failure a week prior. This news hit Tallulah like a dump truck. She had no idea of how to feel. Yes, she was grown up now, no, she hadnât forgiven her father yet. It felt like a piece of her had been permanently severed. Like sheâd been cursed with eternal unfinished business.
Tallulah has been struggling with her partying for quite a few months now to cope with her fatherâs death. But surprisingly her mother has yet to notice and Tallulah would prefer to keep it that way. In her true Gemini fashion she is now living a double life. She so badly wants to escape bighorn hills and embrace the rush of downtown but she canât bring herself to do it. Nor does she think itâs healthy to do this to herself. She promised sheâd never leave her mother behind and thatâs a promise she has to uphold. Even if it breaks her and turns her into the very person she vowed not to be.
