I wanted to write a modern version of Rapunzel that looked at the idea of the mother trying to protect the daughter. She may have been overprotective, but remember, Rapunzel did end up a single mother, living in the desert with twins, until the obligatory happy ending.
Warning, this story contains references to teens having sex and teen pregnancy.
***
I
suppose they'll make me out to be a monster. That's fine. I know the real
story. As I sit here behind bars, waiting for them to decide my fate, I am not
sorry for the choices I made. I would do it all over again, all for my
daughter.
I married young,
and it was over quickly, the dream of love quickly fading to harsh reality. We
were barely more than teenagers, nights of laughing over burnt meals turned to
recriminations. After three years we had failed to have a child, our one great
wish. It tore us apart. He left me for another woman, not even bothering to
finalise the divorce before they tried for another child. I saw her in the
street, her belly full and round and I could not bear the sight of their
smiles.
I moved to a rural
area, and started over. I no longer trusted in love, but I discovered a hidden
talent. I had what they call a green thumb. I grew the largest and tastiest
organic fruit and vegetables anyone had ever seen. I started merely doing it to
feed myself, for I was broke after the divorce. Soon my garden was growing too
much to feed me so I began to sell at the local farmers market. I would go home
in the evenings, my wooden buckets empty of vegetables, but my pockets full of
money. I saved the money up, I had no use for it. I had found a strange kind of
contentment.
I met the Wilsons
at the farmers market. A farmer and his wife. We were friendly acquaintances,
greeting each other with a nod, a smile, a 'nice day, isn't it?" but never
getting involved in one another's private business. It suited me. When Jackson
Wilson had to go overseas for a while, to deal with his dead father's estate, I
sometimes drove Rhonda home, and gave her any greens I had left over.
There was a problem
with the probate, and he had been gone for more than a year when I noticed
Rhonda's swollen belly. I tried to ignore it as I drove her home, not to let
the pangs of failed motherhood overwhelm me, but I could not stop the feelings
rising within me. When I pulled up beside her house, and helped her undo the seatbelt,
Rhonda turned to me with tears in her eyes, "it's not Jackson's, I left it
too late to get rid of it, and I don't know what to do!" And just as if it
had been planned by some merciful God, the words slipped out of my mouth,
"I will raise the child as my own, and we won't ever tell Jackson."
Several months
later, I was holding the child in my arms at the hospital, beside her bed, and
we were both crying, she with relief, I with joy. We registered the child as
mine, father unknown.
A few months after
that, Jackson returned. When he saw me at the market, he was surprised to see
the baby I carried in a sling. I smiled in what I hoped was a rueful way,
"the father didn't want it, but I'm so grateful for my little
miracle", I told him.
Jackson leaned over
to look into my baby's perfect, pink wrinkled face.
"What's her
name?"
"Rapunzel."
He laughed,
"just like your leafy greens, how whimsical."
As Rapunzel grew
older, I found myself fretting over her like a mother hen, worrying that she
would hurt herself or that someone would steal her from me. I began to hate my
little farm, full of holes to fall down, sharp sticks, and the occasional
poisonous snake. I could not sleep at night, so frightened of what might happen
to my little girl. I found myself looking through real estate magazines late at
night, searching for the perfect place. I would know it when I found it.
And finally I did.
It was an old housing tower a few kilometres from a small town, built for a
development that never happened. It was completely empty, selling for a very
low price. I took all my savings and called my lawyer. Within days, the
building was mine.
I moved into the
penthouse suite with Rapunzel, and barely left the house for years. I began
homeschooling my daughter.
I would leave the
house once a month and drive to the town to get supplies. As she got older,
Rapunzel would ask me where I was going, but I would not tell her. I realise
now that I was not well in the head at that time, but what happened to her
after surely proves that my worries were realistic. The cruel world found her
and ruined her innocence.
I still do not know
how he found her. I suppose he was hiking in the countryside, when he saw the
tower. It was worn and abandoned looking from the outside, most of the doors
and windows boarded up. It must have looked interesting to him. Somehow he
found his way inside, all the way to the top, where my Rapunzel waited,
innocent of the ways of the world.
He was a handsome
boy and he must have fascinated her, she who had never seen a boy before in her
life. He left before I returned and I was not any the wiser. But she must have
told him about the day I would leave for town, and he had been visiting for
months before I caught them together.
I was halfway to town
when my ramshackle old truck ran out of gas, I had to walk back to the tower
for the petrol can. When I got there, the door was open. Fearing I knew not
what, I raced up the stairs and through the open door. He was on top of my
Rapunzel, her underwear was around her ankles. I pulled him off her, as she
gasped and pulled her skirt down.
"What are you
doing to my daughter?" I demanded.
"Hang on, I'm
not forcing her, she wanted it!" he protested.
Rapunzel had
covered herself with the rug from the back of the sofa, and her eyes were big
with shock, but she spoke up, "I'm sorry mother, I knew you wouldn't
approve, but we're in love, this is what people who are in love do!"
"Did he tell
you that? Did you even use a condom?" I spat.
Rapunzel's eyes grew
hard, "if you wanted me to know about these things, you should have told
me, mother!"
The boy looked
braver now, "Come on, Rapunzel, get your stuff, we're leaving, mum and dad
will let you stay..."
"Don't you
touch my daughter!" I beat my hands against his chest, pushing him back,
and back again. I never meant to push him through the open window. I watched
him try to regain his balance, then topple backwards. I suppose I could have
grabbed him, but I didn't. I will never forget Rapunzel's scream.
I reported the
death as an accident. Rapunzel was in bed for days, in no fit state to talk to
the police. The police reprimanded me for having an unsafe house, but nothing
else happened.
Until my daughter
began throwing up every morning.
The day I told her
she needed to get an abortion was the day she turned against me. She railed at
me, told me I had murdered the father of her unborn child. I calmed her,
promised I would not force her to get an abortion, and agreed to take her to
town for an ultrasound.
Sitting there
waiting for my pregnant teenage daughter seemed like one of the worst moments
of my life. But far worse was the moment when I asked how much longer my
daughter would be and was told that she had already left.
It goes without
saying that I searched for her. Many months later I got a letter from out in
the desert, saying she was living there now, and not to try and find her. There
was no return address. She had included an ultrasound picture that showed the
twins growing within her tummy. The grandchildren I would never know.
In the meantime, it
seems, the boy's parents had hired a private detective. When he questioned her, she told him the whole story. Of course, the boy's parents had known where she
was all along, how else had she managed to disappear and find a new place so
easily? The betrayal stung.
The last time I
ever saw my daughter was standing in the court room, telling her story without
a shake in her voice, standing proud and tall. More like me than I had ever
realised.
She was never my
real daughter, but I will love her until the day I die, however soon that may
be. My Rapunzel, the love of my life.
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