Heartlines
“Are you writing this down?” my reflection said.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She smiled at me. She was so pretty, not like me. But she was me, sort of. “I need you to write this story down.”
“Okay.”
“Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman. They got married and they had a daughter. But one day, the woman was struck ill and died, leaving the man a widower. All he had was his daughter. So he lavished her with love and gave her anything she wanted. He spoiled her to his heart’s content.
“And then, one day, he met another woman. And he fell in love with this other woman and married her.
“Well, his daughter didn’t like that. She had been the center of his world for so long, she resented the attention that her new stepmother had. But there was nothing to be done. Her stepmother wasn’t wicked, like in fairy tales, but still the daughter decided to leave home, just so that her father would feel guilty and come to find her.
“So she set off one autumn day, when the leaves were brown, and the wind was biting. And she found it was harder than she had imagined, running away from home, but she stuck with it until she was on the edge of town. And there she stopped, because she was tired and because she saw someone.
“That someone turned out to be a little girl, alone and wandering at the outskirts of the town, wearing a dark veil.
“The daughter was intrigued. What was this little girl doing out here? She went and asked if she was lost, but the girl did not answer. The daughter asked the girl if she was in mourning, but still she received no answer.
“Finally, the daughter was so curious as to who the little girl was, she lifted the veil and looked at the girl’s face.
“At the edge of town, the man at last found his daughter. He had been searching frantically for her and, with the help of his new wife, had figured out where she had gone. He found her in the grass, her pretty white dress stained red and a letter held tightly in her hand. The letter read: I gave her everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. I love her so much. I’m going to give her more. That’s what she wants. I’m going to give her my heart.
“The man cried and his tears fell into her empty chest.”
“Did you like that story?” my reflection asked me.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think I understood it.”
“You will,” she said.
