mugging or hanging was a suicide or a mistake or a simple twist of fate. And life goes on and I was suddenly with you always, at your side, and we made a new life for ourselves in another state or country or on an island somewhere and the last that anyone ever saw of us was us running, hand in hand, down the beach and off into that sunset people are always talking about. Yes. Was I wrong to think that? At the time I didn’t feel I was, it felt justified by what you said about him, about your life together. Just phrases, really, a little clue tossed off now and again over a meal at A&W, some little comment that made me believe he didn’t appreciate you, that he didn’t want children with you or to grow old with you or anything anymore, that you were trapped and alone and I was your savior, me, that only I could rescue you from the coal mine of a life that your marriage had become. Some white guy from home, a good family and a bad mistake is what you called it, and I took it to heart, believed that his inability to father a child was of his own making rather than biology, that he was withholding from you and cold and distant and had even laid a finger — or more than that, a hand one time — on your sweet face that I had come to adore and would protect with my life. Did you know that at the time, that I would’ve done even that, died for you? Of course you did. Sixteen-year-olds can hide nothing. I was like some puppy chasing after you, big paws and tongue and silly and sweet. But you didn’t want those things, did you? No, not all of them. Just one. One thing from me and when you had it you left so quickly, with such a fluttering of your wings that I was dazed and dazzled and I believed your whispers. I watched you drive away, even helped you pack your garage, if you can remember that, helped your husband pack up things into a U-Haul and swept it out and washed it down before you left. You paid me twenty dollars there in front of him, smiled at me like we’d never met, and off I trotted, back home to wait for a call that never came and an address that was never, not ever, no never sent.
And now you have your child, that thing you always said would make your life complete. Your husband, too, he got swept up in your miracle and never asked for a blood test that would tell him the horrid truth about you and your deeds. Your missteps. Your tiny plots. Instead you are a happy family living here, where I have found you and have now come to ask for something in return. Of course I have, don’t look so surprised, my dear, for there is always a price to pay for things like this, when you have done what you have done, and now the time has come.
All I want is nothing. That is, that nothing should change from this very moment on. I want you to know I know where you’re at, who you are and what you’ve become. No, you didn’t eventually divorce as you imagined to me you would, a life on your own in another city where I might join you one day, “when you’re grown,” you would say, and oh how I believed you and your words. Those intoxicating words that spewed from your beautiful lips into my ear as I held you and hoped for such a day. But that day never came as you well know, it never did and on you stayed with your man — why wouldn’t you, for there were never any plans on your part to leave him, to be alone, but to add, add a child to the mix and live happily ever after. My child. A child you took from me and I never even knew it. How clever of you, how smart and wily and clever. And almost perfect, the plan, it was almost the most perfect of plans but who knew that my sister — my stupid younger sister who I never really liked and I always thought was a little bit retarded — who could imagine that she could pass a course and would end up working for your doctor in town? You left no trace or so you thought, but files are files and so they stay, and one nosy day she glanced inside to see that your husband, that man I was so ready to hate and kill and despise, she saw that he was empty and void and unable to provide and she thought this was interesting and said so to me and my family one evening out of the blue. They all recalled you fondly and thought it was a sad and strange tidbit about a lovely woman who had been so helpful to their son, but I knew better, didn’t I, my dear? I now knew that you had used me to become pregnant and then off you ran to hide your secret from the world. And me. The one who wanted to be your world but was really only a pawn. A sorry little pawn in your grisly and gory game of love.
But children grow up, God bless them, they do and reach out and up and try things all on their own, things that even their own parents don’t always know about. And so I met your daughter, your little princess, on the Internet and have become her friend. What a place for people like us, you and I, the liars and braggarts and ghosts of this world. Such a nice place to hide and pretend and so I do, I am a lovely little teenage girl named “Samantha” with hair like hand-spun gold, and I live in Texas with my family of five with our dog named “Bubbles” and a boyfriend named “Cory”—yes, I used your husband’s name, I knew it would seal the deal when a squeal from your daughter was followed by “That’s my dad’s name, too! LOL!” Oh yes, she is mine for hours at a time now and we dream and talk and chatter on about a life together at college or beyond. It has been beautiful and filled with laughter and delight, not ugly like what you did to me, not wrong like how you used me. No. It has been so so beautiful and it needs to continue, must continue, and I know you have set restrictions on her recently because she gets online the second you leave the house and complains about you and so I know. But you will let her have this friend, won’t you? Yes, or everything will be revealed. Do you understand me? All of it and to the end. I will ruin you and your perfect little fairy-tale life if you stop her from “seeing” me. Obviously I can never meet her or tell her the truth, one day she will drift away from me and that will be that, as they say, I know this and accept it as fate. Kismet. Karma, not instant but destined and acceptable. But it is not for you to decide so stay away and so will I. That is the deal. That is the cost, my dear. She is yours, to be sure, but she is also mine now and mine she will stay. For as long as I can hold her she will be mine as well. Mine, mine, mine.
She’s beautiful out there, isn’t she? Dancing on the grass and running with her friends. I’ve had to send her photos of myself very carefully — using my little niece as a stand-in — but what I’ve seen of her has been no lie. She is perfect and golden and the one good thing to come out of the filthy ways you used me and soiled a part of my life. Don’t look away because you know it’s true. I hate women and their wily selves; I know men can suck and often do but you are a more treacherous creature overall, surely you recognize that as a truth. You ruined me and left me for dead. You built this burnished little life and happy little world on the shit and bones of my carcass without looking back — and now all I ask is that you continue to look away. Look off some other way when you see her sitting at the computer, giggling and talking with her “friends” on Facebook and Twitter and all the crap I’ve been reduced to just to be near her. My daughter. Look away, go into another room and leave us alone, and by doing so your own rotten, deceitful life can exist for yet another day. Do you agree, my dear? Oh, how I hope so. Here in my broken heart of hearts.
If you want me, need me, long for me as I do for you, my hated, hateful dear, you know where to find me. Lost in space. Out there, somewhere. [email protected].
I see you not looking at me. Head turned. Tears in your eyes. I so wish I knew what you were thinking, but then again, I never really did, did I, so why would it matter now? And it doesn’t. All that matters is you know the truth. Where we stand. And the truth of the matter is I’m here now. I am here and I’m not going away, no, I’m not. Not ever, my dear. Not for a very very very long time.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Rumpelstiltskin story and its title character — he’s a nasty piece of work, but, for some reason, I feel for the little guy. After all, he does exactly what he promises to do and asks for only one thing in return; he keeps his promise when those around him break theirs and is publicly humiliated and sent shrieking off into the night (I suppose the fact that he’s asking for a baby as his prize does make some difference). Still, I love the “person who returns” in literature and “Rumpelstiltskin” is a perfect example of revenge as a motif in the fairy tale. It’s also just a lot of fun, the whole damn story — I mean, he spins gold out of straw, for God’s sake!
I always felt like the deck was so improbably stacked against Rumpelstiltskin and still he plunges forward with his offer of salvation — he’s a bit of a Shylock in this sense and anti-Semitic sentiment has even been heaped on his head throughout the ages. This guy can’t cut a break!
I’ve always worried that we’re too easy on the beautiful people in this world and so it’s little surprise that I find my overweight, average self drawn to this most romantic and fated of antiheroes. So it goes with writers — we can’t help but imagine new ways in and out of age-old troubles.
This is my attempt at giving the man his due, set in an updated world and filtered through a modern sensibility. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the ride.
SHELLEY JACKSON. The Swan Brothers
