Letter from a Desperate Father
by Maron Anrow
? 2016 Maron Anrow
Good sir,
I'm writing to you because I've heard you're a fair and generous man. You may not know this, but you purchased a few of my goats three years back. Your man didn't try to wear me down with haggling. He paid a reasonable price. I remember things like that.
I know how my recent actions must seem. My story is not a simple one, though it pains me to dwell on how things turned out. All I ask is to see my son, and I hope you'll be willing to help me after reading this letter. You're respected in our community, and I entreat you to use your position to intercede on my behalf.
I will start at the beginning. My childhood was humble. I had two brothers and three sisters. One of each died young, and the rest moved away. I inherited our parents' four acres of farmland and the small cottage on it. My eldest brother said I was slow and lacked ambition, but I'm happy surrounding myself with animals by day and books by night.
In a way, my life didn't begin until I met my wife. My memories before her are faint and bland-when I recall them, it's as if they didn't happen to me-while everything after her is crisp and flavorful, much in the way a parched mouth swells with moisture after biting into a sour apple.
Our courtship was untraditional. When I went to feed my goats one morning, I discovered a post had come down and two of my billies were missing. They must have jumped the dip in the fence. I fixed the post in haste, then went to find the animals. The Milwood Forest isn't far from my property, and that's where I went after searching my fields in vain.
After a few minutes in the forest, I heard crying amongst the trees. Not a shrill, childish cry, but a defeated sob. I followed it, and there were my goats, resting next to a weeping woman. She looked at me, and there was anger in her eyes-as if it were I who had caused her to be so sad.
"Those are my goats," I said, justifying my presence.
Her anger changed to irritation.
"So?" She waved her arm over the resting goats. "I did not take them, and I'm not holding them here. Do what you will."
I understood her words, but I stood there, distracted. Her appearance had arrested my attention. She wore a standard servant's smock, but it did not suit her at all. Her hair was blacker and straighter than any I'd seen, and it fell to her waist. One of my friends later told me her hair was like silk, but I've never seen silk so I can't say. She had an accent I'd never heard before, and she held herself like the lady of a fine estate despite her servant's garb. To complete the wrongness of it all, her clothes were dirtied and torn. I wondered if she'd been in the forest for days.
I suppose I was standing there dumbly, because she cocked her head to one side and said, "Don't you want your goats?"
Her strange accent entranced me. I stammered a yes, or so I think I did. But I couldn't approach her.
"Come and get them," she said.
I stayed where I was until I finally found my tongue. "What happened to you? Why were you crying?"
"Because of unkind things, and because life is not fair."
"What?" I've never claimed to be a smart man.
She smirked at my dullness. "Will you help me?"
"How? I mean, what do you need?"
"I'm on my own and I have nowhere to go. I worked for a cruel master," she gestured at her smock, "but I escaped. I fear to leave this forest because there is nothing else for me." Her eyes bore through mine. "You seem a nice man. Can you help me?"
Turning her away never crossed my mind. "I don't have much, but I can offer you food and a place to sleep for a short time."
Now her smile reached her eyes. "That would be enough." She stood gracefully from the log on which she'd sat, and when she stood, so too did my goats.
Her long black hair swayed with her movement. She was a tall woman, and she spoke and looked at me with masculine directness. I know men who want a meek and dainty wife so they feel large and powerful by contrast, but my future wife's assertive demeanor attracted me. It was inevitable I would fall in love.
I led her back to my home. She appraised it quietly, and nodded as if to say, "This will do." She stayed in the second bedroom those first few weeks, and after that I asked her to marry me. I'm not one to attract the eye of women, so I was stunned when she said yes.
Not long after our wedding, I made a trip to town. I overheard a rumor about the mysterious illness and subsequent death of the lord of an estate a few miles from town, in the opposite direction of my farm. I didn't think much of it then. But many times since, I've wondered if that was the estate from which my wife escaped.
I often asked her to tell me about her childhood and homeland. She would laugh, as if there was no point in answering. Some people might take offense at her response, but there was no malice or disdain in it.
"My home is more distant than you can imagine," she said.
"Is it near the Americas? Africa?"
"It is an island east of Russia, north of Japan." She paused, then raised her brows at me. "Do you know where those countries are?"
"Yes, but I've never seen them mapped."
"Well, then there is no point telling you more."
"Can't you tell me its name?"
"You could not pronounce it."
"But I could hear it."
"Silly man." She leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "Do not bother yourself with such things."
I was unsatisfied. "What about how you came to be here?" I asked. "Can you tell me that?"
Her expression darkened at my question. "I do not like to recall it."
I suspected forced servitude, even slavery, but I respected her and didn't press the issue. I did continue to inquire about her homeland itself, but the conversation ended the same way each time I broached the topic. However, when we had our son, I sometimes overheard her telling him stories from her homeland. These stories always involved magic, such as spirits, demons, curses, and gifts of foresight. Why could she share this part of herself with our son, but not me?
Once, I told her tales of magic from my childhood, hoping it would encourage her to respond with stories of her own.
"And then the girl pricked herself on the needle, and slept for hundreds of years," I concluded, proud of my storytelling.
"Hmph," she scoffed. "What a childish notion of magic."
"How do you see magic?" Could this be it? Would she finally include me in her world?
"If magic existed, it would have to be part of the natural world. All things come from nature. Life and death in their basic forms are influenced by others' lives and deaths. But fairies and an eternity of sleep? Bah! It is easier to imagine the absurd than to grasp a possible yet unseen reality."
Her words made no sense to me. "What do you mean?"
"Never mind yourself with it. You English have limited imaginations. This is not something you could understand."
At this point, you probably think I'm a weak man, so easily belittled by my wife. But that is never how I felt. I agreed with her. Her mind was truly more expansive than mine. What may seem like insults were simply factual statements from her perspective. To this day, I still believe that, despite what followed.
Now I must tell you about our son. He arrived quickly. I didn't keep a close eye on the calendar, but I don't doubt it was nine months to the day from our wedding. His birth was noteworthy. My wife refused the assistance of a midwife, but I ultimately got my way. This was one of the rare times my will bested hers.
She was disdainful of the midwife, and she proved me wrong: The midwife hadn't been necessary. My son's birth was over in minutes, with seemingly little pain and certainly no complication.
The midwife
was stunned. "Such a birth I've never seen," she said. My wife hurried her out of our home, and then her eyes were only for our boy.
His appearance took after hers. Straight black hair, ivory skin, round eyes, slender neck, long fingers. He was her in miniature, male form. But his demeanor was like mine-meek and cautious. His mother complained and urged him to be bold like her. But it simply wasn't in his nature.
One day I was sitting on the stool in the kitchen, mending my work boots. My boy was six at the time. He rushed into the cottage, tears streaming down his face.
"Papa," he cried, breaking my heart.
I put aside my leatherwork and rose to meet him. I took his small hands in mine. His fingernails were short and crusted with dirt. His tears cut trails through the dust on his round cheeks.
"What is it, my boy?" Effortlessly, I lifted him and held him to my chest. If my wife were there, she would have said I was coddling him, encouraging his timidity. But she wasn't, so I gave in to my urge to comfort him.
"Elizabeth's leg-" he sobbed. Elizabeth was one of our goats. It had been his idea to give them human names. "-it's? it's twisted!"
I hurried to the pen, still carrying him. He buried his face in my neck, his cheek and tears warm against my skin. I heard the injured animal before I saw it. It yowled in pain, causing the other goats to run around and bleat anxiously.
I set down my son, who was crying more fiercely than before.
"Oh, Papa, she hurts so much!"
I knelt by Elizabeth. The poor thing's leg was indeed twisted and likely broken. My first thought was that she'd jumped