“Your mother’s waiting in the back. Let’s go.” He gestures with his head, and we continue along the garden path.
The deeper we advance into the garden, the more the plants change. While the front is a pristine, blossoming rainbow of flowers and shrubs, the landscape changes to typical green hedges halfway back. Eventually, the path is lined with succulents and cacti, prickly but still beautiful. But it’s the very back where we are going, to a place hidden in the deepest recesses of the garden, a place where my parents have relegated their deepest, darkest emotions.
We stop in front of a massive black thornbush that rises like a behemoth against an eight-foot privacy wall it’s almost overgrown. Its thorns are as long as my hand, and its branches are a tangled nightmare to behold. This is where my parents have planted their feelings about me, and this is what those seeds have grown into.
My mother joins us, stepping out from a small shed at the back of the property with a trowel and gloves. I glance between my mother and father and then back at the monstrosity in front of me. This thornbush is the physical manifestation of their anger, disappointment, resentment, and worry for me. Placed at the back of their garden, it’s shameful to them, a manifestation of their deepest secret and most negative thoughts and feelings. I am daunted by how it’s spread, choking out some of the green that used to be here.
“It’s too big,” I say softly. “I’m not sure anything I can say can undo this.”
My mother makes a harsh throaty noise. “Not with that attitude.”
I take a deep breath. The thing about fairy gardens is that we plant in them the seeds we care about. Negative emotions can be dealt with. Hate is a villain that can be fought. Disappointment can be weeded out and appeased. The only seed that will not grow in a fairy garden is contempt. Those die, if the pixie coughs them up at all. As foreboding as this thornbush is, it proves my parents don’t feel contempt for me. They have loved me enough to foster this tangled monster of thorns all these years, waiting and hoping that one day I’d be here to face it down.
This can be undone.
“I’m willing to try.” I take another deep breath and turn to face them.
“Start with why you left.” My mother folds her arms and pops out one leg.
“You know why. You wanted me to end my pregnancy.” My stomach twists, and my muscles tense with the accusation.
My father shakes his head. “We wanted you to go to Godmother and ask for help.”
“Do you think you were the first fairy with an unwanted pregnancy?” my mother rattles off. “Godmother has a tea that could have fixed everything.”
“By making me not pregnant anymore,” I grit out.
“No. Not like that. It was early in the pregnancy. A simple time-travel spell and she could’ve given your past self something to undo the damage.”
“Arden isn’t damage,” I say through my teeth. “She’s beautiful and exceptional and half-human. Maybe I didn’t grow her on a vine, but believe me, the human way isn’t any less miraculous. And here she is, the fruit of my labor. I love her as much as I love myself. Would you have Godmother undo her now?”
My mother rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.” She coughs into her hand. “Making something as if it never happened is far different than ending something that’s already begun.”
“We accept Arden,” my father chimes in, his voice lined with grit. “She’s a lovely, exceptional young woman. Reminds me of you. How dare you suggest we would hurt her in any way? No one would have forced you to Godmother’s back then. Sure, we thought it was best, but it was your decision, and if you would have stayed and trusted us, we would have supported you either way.”
“Maybe I should have trusted you. I admit that. But I couldn’t stay, not after what happened. Not after the stares, the judgment. How could I have raised Arden in that? You know what? If I had it to do over again, I’d do it exactly the same way.” Tears slip down my face and pick up speed. I’ve been holding them back all day, and I just can’t anymore. “You don’t know what it was like for me. What Seven and his father did to me, humiliating me in public like that, I was the laughingstock of Devashire.”
My mother’s voice is almost a scream when she responds, “You’d do it again? Abandon us? The embarrassment you experienced at the ball was a shadow of what we felt after you left. You were abandoned by a leprechaun, Sophia. Everyone knows they think they’re better than us. But to be abandoned by your own daughter? One who was pregnant with your grandchild!”
“You didn’t want her. I did.” The words catch in my throat and come out as a croak. I shake my head.
“We wanted her,” my father says. “Maybe we didn’t admit it right away, but we would have come around if given a chance. I was just so angry that a human had taken advantage of you. I swear if I’d have found him, I’d have—”
“No! Dad, he waskindto me. The kindest person I’ve ever met. That human male kept me from slitting my wrists that night. Part of the reason I left was to look for him.”
“Oh, Sophia, you can’t be serious. A crush on a human over one night?” My father’s disappointment is palpable.
“I thought I loved him. I know it’s crazy, but I did.” I sob openly.
“We loved you,” my mother says.
My father’s gaze settles on my tears. “Weloveyou.” His voice is choked. He turns to my mother. “We knew she was hurting, Aurora. We’d heard what the Delaneys did to her, and we didn’t defend her. We didn’t go to Godmother and demand justice.”
“What would she have done, Matthias? The Delaneys are untouchable! Both of us hoped if we stopped talking about it, it would blow over.”
I give a pained laugh. “It will never blow over. Everyone in this town knows I was the butt of his joke. I’m older now. I understand he was a bully, and I’m a survivor. But the pain is still there.” I touch my chest. “And all I felt from you was a desire to hide it. You wanted to sweep it under the rug, just like my pregnancy. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t swallow it down. And I couldn’t give up Arden. She was… she felt magical, like a cosmic blessing.”
My mother squeaked and sobbed behind her hand. “I’m sorry, but for the love of light, Sophia, if you’d given us a chance, we’d have come around.”
