* -- karen lisbon (lisa edelstein)

KAREN LISBON !

karen lisbon’s life hasn’t exactly turned out the way she – or anyone, really – should want their life to be. it wasn’t for lack of trying, though. as a child, she worked hard in school in an attempt to overcome her background; growing up in a poor alaskan school district where the majority of the class consisted of boys going to jail and girls getting pregnant. of the few in her class who did graduate high school, she was the only one to go off to college. she got a full ride (with quite a few conditions attached) to mcgill university in montreal. in her first semester, though, she fell in love with the teacher’s assistant leading her journalism discussion group, kenneth adams. he was so unlike all the other boys; smart, romantic, not an asshole.

she discovered she was pregnant before christmas break. although keeping the baby would mean that she’d have to drop out of school to accommodate the pregnancy – and avoid kenneth. if she was going to go down, she didn’t want to bring kenneth with her. she became a housekeeper for the prousts. they were a rich, childless couple who’d just moved from vancouver to escape from the movie business (bill was a screenwriter, linda was an actress). linda proust, seeing this predicament, offered to give the baby the life karen couldn’t afford to give her. linda even guaranteed her a job as their housekeeper and a place to stay in their poolhouse. unable to refuse a good job and a place so close to the daughter she couldn’t afford to care for. and karen and kenneth’s daughter – who the prousts named desdemona (and who desdemona named mona) – was given a great life… spoiled rotten. but somehow, being able to watch her daughter live that wonderful life murdered karen’s morale. she went through a fit of depression and ended up pregnant a few months later. luckily, during her time in the poolhouse, she’d accumulated enough money to afford her own place and the basic means to care for a child. afraid of an another offer to adopt her child, she kept her pregnancy a secret and kept the baby – a daughter she named viola – when she was born.

she’s continued to work for the prousts, in addition to cleaning a few other supplementary houses during the week. viola doesn’t understand and kind of resents that her mother works for the prousts; viola hates the way mona treats their her mother. viola would probably be event more disgusted with this behavior if she actually knew that mona was her half-sister. karen just lives with it, happy to see her daughter grow up better off than she ever had it.

if you decide to take karen and have any questions, pm any of elle’s accounts (and they would be mona,