The Blue Room Vol. 5 by Kailin Gow Page B

didn't get abducted or run over by any unsavory
characters, which is probably the nicest thing he ever did for anybody his
whole life long, now that I think about it. I waited until my mother came home
that night, past midnight, so that it was actually Christmas morning. I waited
and waited until it was almost dawn. Then she came home.
                She
found me sitting on the motel stairway leading up to our room.
                “Honey?”
She looked worried. “Is is everything okay/”
                She
unlocked the room for me.
                “I
got you something,” she said. “Not much...but I wanted you to have a Christmas
present.”
                It
was beautiful.
                She
had taken a series of rags – probably cleaning supplies bleached past use – and
sewn them into shapes; these she'd stitched together with a few buttons and a
thread grin and made a doll with a crooked face. She must have spent hours on
it.
                I
hugged it tight. For a moment, I wanted to forget about my question there and
then; I was so grateful for her kindness. But my curiosity then – as it did so
many years later with Rita – won out. And so I asked her the question that had
been gnawing on my brain for months.
                Mommy ,
I said.
                Mommy,
where's my daddy?
                I
could see my mother frown. I could see the tears spring to her eyes.
                “Why
do you ask?” she said. It was a careful answer.
                “At
school...” I lied. “Somebody asked me. And...I didn't know the answer. You
always say when I have a question and I don't know the answer to ask you,
right?”
                “Right.”
She turned away so I could not see her tears. “Your daddy...let's just say.
Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince. And that was your daddy. And he
fell in love with an ordinary peasant girl. And their love was so strong that
it made a baby – and that baby was you. But the laws of the prince's land were
very strict. And those laws said that princes couldn't marry peasant girls or
have babies with them. And so he had to go away before you were born.”
                “But
didn't he love us?”
                I
was horrified – I'd expected her to tell me that he was dead, or that something
had happened to him. Maybe he was even in jail, like some of the convicts I
used to see picking up trash on the side of the road. But no. He'd just left.
                “Didn't
he love us?” I cried in horror.
                My
mother sighed. “He was the most loving man I ever knew,” she said. “Believe me
when I tell you that. Loving and handsome. Just like a prince. But princes
don't make the rules in fairy tales. They don't get to decide things for
themselves. There are just rules...that's all.”
                “I
hate rules!” I cried.
                “I
just want you to think of him as a prince,” she said. “Like a handsome prince.
That's how I like to remember him, too. And whenever you think of him, I want
you to remember that the love we had – it was just like a fairy tale. But now
it's better, just the two of us.”
                “But
Mommy,” I cried. “Don't fairy tales end with happily ever after ?”
                My
mother took a deep sigh.
                “They
do,” she said.
                “So
why doesn't this one?”
                The
tears kept falling from her face, onto me.           
                “I
don't know, Staci,” she said, weeping softly. “I'm so sorry. I just don't
know.”
     

 
    Chapter 1
     
     
                I need a break.
                Well,
I need a lot of things, but right now, a break's at the top of the list.
                What
I've