The Happy Story - Page 2
The rain stopped, I opened my eyes, and to my joy there was a huge rainbow in the sky. Yes, I thought, and I sat up, and looked all around me. Just like that day, there they were, rainbows under the leaves, on droplets on rocks, and on spiders' webs. I laughed excitedly, and got up, and twirled around and around until the world tilted crazily. Then I jumped up and down, and started dancing. I was half-crazed from the air with that rich after rain smell, and all those rainbows. I started to see spots I was moving so fast, but, no, they weren't spots at all, they were fairies. I started weeping in joy, they joined hands with me with knowing smiles, welcoming laughs, and we danced. They draped me in the rainbows, I became the rainbows. Finally I fell back, laughing and exhausted, and I heard a deep voice laughing behind me. Instantly, of course, the fairies disappeared, blowing me bubble kisses, but it didn't matter. A moment with them is like one of our eternities. We can't really comprehend eternities. I hugged myself because now the wind was starting up, and the wet was drying off my clothes and skin, and I was cold. My teeth chattered, and I turned to meet the man that was standing behind me laughing.
I bent to pick up my purse, and the fairies, they made me act like I never would, I boldly smiled at him, and said, how are you? He smiled even more broadly, and offered me a hand, saying, thank you, I'm doing well, although obviously not as well as yourself. He had an American accent, or rather, lack of British accent. I'm terrible with accents so I didn't even try to analyze it. The whole way back to the station, he never once questioned what I was doing in the meadow, although he did laugh at me for leaving all of my things at the station. I told him that I was going back to London that day instead of staying, and that I must fly back as soon as possible, tomorrow or the day after. I'd gotten what I was over. What more could I ask for?
True love always triumphs, we met again just a month later, and of course I married him. The only time he ever asked about that day was at the altar. I walked up to him, he lifted back the veil, and leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, come my fairy, we shall be one. And a year from the day we met, our daughter joined in our life game.
As we sat in the meadow like we do every year, I held her close and told her a story about the fairies. She looked up at me, and said earnestly, mother, I know. The fairies aren't any more real than Santa Claus. They're real if you think they are, I told her just as seriously. I've seen them. I'll take you to England one spring and show you. She looked up at me puzzled. She could tell I wasn't lying, but I couldn't possibly be telling the truth. She waited for me to say they were in my heart or in the leaps my mind takes or some such nonsense, but it didn't happen. We just sat there, enjoying the beautiful day, and I didn't feel so badly anymore.
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