Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales Paperback

This kid, right, after a couple years of this, she’s kind of learned to accept that things will never go back to the way they were. She understands that she can’t invite friends over because then she’d have to explain to them what her mother is doing, and she doesn’t know what her mother is doing so how can she explain it? She realizes that the other kids’ mothers aren’t like this, so she doesn’t go visit them because she can’t stand the sight of their moms in the kitchen, or coming in from work, briefcase in hand, or calling them into the house to wash up before supper.

This goes on for about three years. I know, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The kid is around ten years old when finally, she’s worked up the nerve to do something about it. I mean, she wants her mom back, right? It can’t be like it was before the mirror, but it could be something else, something better than having a mom who does nothing but this one stupid thing. Almost anything would be better than that. And then, as if all this isn’t bad enough, Dad dies. You remember that, I’m sure. That makes the kid even more determined.

This kid thinks and thinks about her mom, about all the things her mom used to enjoy, about all of the things they did together before the ? 325 ?

? The Mirror Tells All ?

mirror, even though she can hardly remember some of them because she’d been so young. She thought, Mom liked shoes, but I don’t know what size she wears. Mom liked steak, but I don’t know how to cook one. Mom liked music, but the old radio was gone. And then she remembered how, before the mirror had appeared on the wall, her mother used to sit at her dressing table in the morning doing her hair.

Her mother had liked to do her hair. Now, this little girl had since grown out of purple ponies and glitter, and in fact she was as much of a tomboy by then as a girl could be. She didn’t know anything about how to do hair—she put her own in a ponytail in the morning and then forgot about it. That was doing hair. Then she remembered this old doll she used to have, and how its hair had been braided, and the braids had been laced through with ribbons. Not just any ribbon either.

This ribbon had been embroidered with colorful, detailed scenes of animals frolicking, flowers blooming—all sorts of wonderful, tiny things had been sewn into that ribbon. When her mother had given her the doll she’d said, “This is very old. It’s been in our family for a long time, and it was my doll when I was a girl, just like you. It’s your turn to take care of her now, just like I’ve done for all these years.”

The girl remembered this because, at the time, she thought that doll was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. And now she thought, that is what I’ll do. I’ll get my mother a beautiful ribbon to weave through her hair. It’ll give her something to do in front of that mirror.

Problem was, the girl had no money. Oh sure, she was always provided for, but no one thought to give her cash. Why would they?

So one day, after school, instead of getting on the bus as she’d done every day, she walked the two miles or so into town. She’d never been into town, but that didn’t stop her. She needed a ribbon, and that was the only place she’d find one.

Yeah, you didn’t know I did that, did you. Well, you wouldn’t.

She knew the way; every kid knew the way. It’s all the girls talked about in class—how their mothers had taken them to the boutiques, to the mall, to wherever it is mothers take their daughters to buy them pretty baubles and bras and whatever else it is that mothers ? 326 ?

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buy. Well, after a lot of walking and searching for just the right shop, she found it. It was three floors of sparkling handbags, row upon row of shoes, a lingerie section in which she could have got lost for days.

It was utterly and completely filled with stuff—the kind of stuff you loved, once upon a time.

The girl found the perfect ribbon, embroidered and with the extra bonus of having beads sewn into the seams. And without a second thought, she stole that ribbon, put it in her pocket and walked out.

That night she brought the ribbon to her mother. The room was dark, but for one small lamp lit on the nightstand. Dad’s side of the bed was made up tight, but yours was a mess. I remember that. It made me sad. So this girl brings her mother the ribbon, stands in front of her mother with the thing in her hand and says, “Mother, I brought you something.”