And They All Lived Happily Ever After

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And they all lived happily ever after. That's the classic ending for every fairytale story. The stories with princesses, and princes and magical fairies. With lots of splendid colors and pictures and dads who always came home. In those types of stories, there's never any divorce or fighting or reasons to cry. Poor Cinderella sheds a few tears because she can't go to the ball, but has she tried going for five days without food. Then she'd really have something to cry about. Dear Sleeping Beauty has a spell put on her that causes her to slumber away in bed for years to come; but at least she has a bed. At least she has a prince charming that will wake her up from her world of sleep. If I ever decided to go to sleep for a while, would anyone wake me up?

My name is Sofia, and I am fourteen years of age. I was eleven when my dad left, breaking my mother's heart. I was twelve when she was diagnosed with depression and thirteen when she decided that she could not look after my five year old brother James and me. She packed our clothes into a bag, with a little bit of money and a note that pleaded for us to be cared for. She then drove us to the nearest bus stop and left us there pleading for her to come back. She did not take us to an adoption agency; in fear of being locked up in a mental hospital for her severe depression. She told us that she did it out of love. A week later though, when I saw her sauntering along the street with the guy she'd told us was a counselor, I no longer believed her.
For days we waited and waited, getting hungrier and thirstier and the time went on. Finally someone stopped and read the note. It was an elderly woman with graying hair and kind eyes. Her voice and face were as soft as velvet and she had an air about her that was trustworthy and honest. She would have been perfect to look after us; we would have gladly gone with her. There was one problem though, she was a widower and when her husband died she went broke and barely had enough money to get by.

Two young children who needed schooling was not something she could afford. She was kindhearted though and offered to drive us to the nearest orphanage. We eagerly agreed as we were beginning to feel our empty stomachs and dry throats. She left us there, wishing us a happy life. We wished her the same and then turned to face what would soon become our hell.

The orphanage was awful. The mistresses treated us as slaves, cooking, washing and cleaning for them while they went about their business drinking tea and buying expensive items. Every day we prayed for our mother to come back and get us, believing that she still loved us and that this institution was only temporary. We believed that our mother was going through a phase. She would recover and reclaim us as her children, loving us once again. I even managed to leave a note on her doorstep, during one of the few outings that the orphanage takes us on. I sneaked away while the mistress was looking elsewhere and shoved the letter through the mail box, after a quick peep confirming that she still lived there. I could see her favorite coat hanging over a chair and her best hat on the hatstand. Why did I not ring the bell, you may ask. Much later I am still asking myself this question. I believe I was simply unprepared for this type of confrontation and wished her to make the move to collect us. The note simply stated that we were currently residing at the orphanage a block away from her house, ready for her collection when she was able. For weeks afterwards we eagerly awaited her arrival, boasting to all of our friends.

We started to wonder whether or not she had received the letter. Had it gotten lost, or stepped on. Maybe it was under a doormat, hidden from her eyes. On our next outing I planned to go again, but that is when I saw her. She was wondering through the stalls of the daily markets, her hips swaying and long hair swinging. I was about to call out and then stopped. From behind her appeared a man I knew too well. The counselor who she had seen daily when we were with her. He would arrive, give us a nod, my mother a wink (to which she would respond with a slight giggle that was quickly smothered with a cough) and they would retreat behind the closed door of my mother's bedroom. Whenever we asked what went on behind this closed door, mother simply said that it was just a counseling session that was necessary in order for her to recover from her 'illness'. I watched on as he came up behind her and whispered something in her ear, which resulted in that hysterical giggle once more, though without us around, a cough was no longer necessary to smother it.

I glowered as I observed her flirting with him in a gregarious manner, drawing a few stares and titters. It was that moment, watching her acting with him in a way she had never done with our father, that I realized we had been blind. She had never loved us, never wanted us. It was only pretense for our father, to keep him around. Now with him gone, she no longer needed us. We were just chess pieces in a game. Once the player got bored the pieces were tossed away for another day, or never again. "Isn't that your mother?" my closest friend Jillian asked, for I kept a picture of her next to my bed. "No", I stated firmly, "definitely not."

The next day we left the orphanage, and ran away. There was no longer a reason to stay, a reason to suffer. Our 'mother' was never coming to get us, to rescue us and protect us once more. Our father was long gone to who knows where. It was obvious that he neither wanted nor cared about us. Or maybe that was wrong. I stretched my memory back to the day he left. It was the day after my 11th birthday. The presents had been opened, the happy birthdays all said. So he chose that moment to drop the bomb. "I'm leaving kids" he said it just like that, though I could see the pain plainly in his eyes. Confused, I glanced at our mother, but she had left her seat from the table where we were eating, and I could hear loud sobbing from her room. We begged and we pleaded, but nothing could make him stay. We wondered aloud what we had done wrong. He assured us that nothing of our fault had caused this decision. We were too distraught at the time to notice how he stressed that it was nothing of our fault. Even then at such young ages I do not think we could have made that leap to our mother.

And so he was gone, without a trace, to our bitter disappointment and our mother's broken heart. She quickly decided that she needed a counselor (very quickly now that I think about it) telling us that she had been diagnosed with depression (though I did not recall her seeing a doctor). And that was when the closed door began. The doors that shut her off from us, creating a gap between us that widened as the year went on.
For the first time in our lives, excluding our two days at the bus stop, we were well and truly alone. We knew the orphanage would not even set up a search party. What's one less child, from the thousands they oversee? We could not seek help for we would most certainly be turned over to the orphanage once more. What would we do for food and water? While pondering these questions and now 6 year old James piped up with ideas we crossed the busy main street to reach the park on the other side. It solved many problems for us. It provided shelter from the harsh elements and a soft place to sleep. We used to go and play there when we were younger and there was a little alcove under a bridge where couples often lay, but would be a perfect sleeping spot for us, away from prying eyes and the elements.

This park also provided water for it had a bubbler situated near our little dwelling. We would have to find another way to locate our food, but this would do for now. The leafy green of the park was so inviting. We were free spirited and happy as we made our way towards it. After looking carefully both ways we stepped onto the street preparing to cross. James cracked a joke that was so funny it made me laugh out loud. I was laughing so hard and James was so engrossed in the sound of my laughter, a sound he doesn't hear very often, that we did not see the truck come spinning around the corner on its massive eight wheels. We did not hear it until it was too late and the brakes were screeching and protesting, sending a smell of burnt rubber into the air. I knew we had no chance, it was coming too fast and we were too close. My last thought was to shove James as hard as I could in the direction of the footpath, not caring if this hurt him. He would be hurting a lot more from the impact of what was coming. In the next second I was hit by said impact, turning everything to an inky black, as I faded out of consciousness.

I watched as the truck slams into my sister, the impact sending her flying. If she hadn't thrown me aside, maybe she could have saved herself. I look towards the park at the happy picture painted there. Where we were going to live, breathe and laugh. Our happily ever after. I remember our dad used to read us fairy tales before we went to sleep. Cinderella and Snow White were always my sister's favorites. I always pestered my sister about these stories, asking over and over about the endings. Was there a happy ending for everyone? Would we have a happy ending eventually? I realize now though, in the real world, there is no happily ever after. That does not happen in real life. Everybody dies in the end. Whether it is as suddenly as my sister Sofia, or as gradually as old age, everybody dies. How is that a happy ending? I suppose people who are religious might consider dying and joining god in heaven in a world of happily ever after is a happy ending. But as I gaze at my sister's still form on lying on the road, in that fraction of time before people start to panic, I embrace the fact that magical world of happily ever after, is just too far, far away.