The Truth About the Wicked Stepmother
Once upon a time, there was a princess named Celeste. She lived in a castle with her father who loved her dearly, and her wicked stepmother who was cruel to her every chance she got. The stepmother had children of her own and she treated them with loving kindness, but Celeste never got a break from the mean old bag.
Celeste had a miserable childhood. She was blamed for everything that happened, laden with hard work and beaten constantly. The wicked stepmother harangued her husband about “that evil little changeling.” Finally, she told him it was “that brat or her.” So the King, fearing to lose his wife, withdrew his affections from his beloved daughter. But because he couldn’t stand the pain of seeing her so hurt, he withdrew further into his inner world where he wouldn’t have to notice anything around him.
When Celeste was still a child, she ran away from home. She traveled far and wide, seeking a place that would welcome her. But everywhere she went, she met people who reminded her of her wicked stepmother. No matter where she was, nobody liked her and everybody shunned her. She searched a long, long while for love but she never found it.
At last, after long, lonely travels, she found herself at the gates of her childhood home. She had searched everywhere and it was the only place left. She was sick, weary to the bone, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and numb from the sensory overload of terrible pain. She was dying. She didn’t expect to be welcomed but she had no choice. So she went to the gates and knocked.
Her father the King met her at the door. He roared, “You! Wretch! How dare you darken my door!” He could not see her. He no longer knew her or his own heart. He was acting out the role he had agreed to play so long ago. But the Queen, his wife, said nothing. She drew Celeste gently into the castle, led her to a comfortable bed in an quiet room, bathed her and dressed her wounds with her own hands. She sat by Celeste’s bedside night and day, nursing her back to health. When Celeste was finally well enough to see who had cared for her, she sobbed and raged.
“You horrible witch!” she cried, “You made my life hell! Don’t you touch me! I hate you!”
She raged and cried and raged some more, and the stepmother said not a word in her own defense, but tears leaked silently from her eyes. Celeste could not stop her rage, nor did she want to. Now was her chance to punish her tormenter, the witch of her childhood. She laid viciously into the Queen. She raked through every incident from the past, every terrible thing the wicked stepmother had done to her. Through it all, the stepmother remained silent, though often she left the room with tears streaming down her face. Then, Celeste could hear her keening sobs through the thick stone walls of the castle.
There came a day when Celeste’s rage deserted her. She reached for it, because she had come to rely on its bright bitter force to make her feel alive. Without it she was nothing. She had believed that rage was all she was. And for the moment, it was gone. In its place was pellucid calm, a clarity like dawn.
She asked her stepmother, “Why have you been so kind? I’ve been horrible to you. I’ve blamed and raged and attacked you and I always expected you to attack me back. But you never have. You’ve fed me and cared for me. Once I awoke in the night to find you sitting at my bedside with your hand on my forehead. What’s happened to you?”
The Queen lowered her head and sobbed heartbrokenly. When she could speak through the tears in her voice, she said, “O my dear child. I could never defend myself against your rage, because it was right. I have been dreadful to you since you were a helpless infant. I blamed your very existence for everything that was wrong, and your subsequent behavior seemed to prove that I was right to blame you. I suffered myself, and I was locked in a trap in which I saw you as the problem.
Though she was sobbing harder, the Queen resolutely continued whenever she could speak. “It relieved my own pain to hurt you, or so it seemed. I beat you, I punished you when the pressure of my own emotions became intolerable. I could give you no love, though in my deepest heart I longed to.
“Then, you decided I must not be your real mother because, you said, your real mother would love you. That felt like the final straw, that you refused to even acknowledge me as your rightful mother. I hardened my heart to you even more.”
“So what happened, then?” Celeste asked suspiciously. She didn’t trust this newfound vulnerability at all. “What changed your mind about me?” She was not prepared for what came next.
“What changed my mind, dear child,” her mother said softly, brokenly, “is that you left me. And my heart shattered completely. I grieved hard for you, and nothing could console me. I had bound you to me with stiff cords of love that expressed itself as hatred, and I didn’t recognize that it was love until you weren’t there to blame anymore.
“I went mad for awhile,” she admitted, “and could not care for your baby brothers and sisters. I noticed then that they, my innocent angels, were showing me the very qualities I had hated so in you. They were looking more and more like malignant, manipulative monsters, but now, I could see that the thing I hated was really inside me all along.”
She arose in a swirl of skirts and moved to the great arching window overlooking the garden. “Now,” she continued, smiling gently and settling into the window seat cushions, “I have made my peace with that part of me. It was difficult, and it has taken me many tears and much relentless honesty and self-examination. I no longer feel any remnant of hatred for the ways that you looked to me in the past. I understand what happened there now. I was projecting my own miserable beginnings of life onto you. I made you the scapegoat for everything I hated and feared about myself as a child, and that was wrong of me.”
Celeste responded bitterly, “I hear your words, but I still don’t trust you. I don’t know if I will ever trust you. You have stolen my childhood and I can’t see how you can ever give it back. All the love in the world, all the sorries and all the grief, is not going to do anything for the hurt child I was. I hate you for what you have done to the little girl who only wanted you to love her!” She paced the room restlessly.
“And now,” she exclaimed, whirling to face the Queen, “it’s too late! I’ve grown twisted and bitter from the damage that was done then. I can’t imagine how to change the way I am now. I wish I could but it feels like part of me.”
With grave dignity, her mother (the Queen) said,”You needn’t trust me, my dear. I don’t expect you to. But I will receive your rage and I will give you my truth with an open heart. I trust you. I know you will not harm me. You are my child and there is nothing you can do to hurt me.” She smiled wryly. “I expect your rage, and I am fully prepared for your thrashing and bared teeth. I will treat you gently without imposing love that you are unable to accept from me. You shall have all the time you need.”
Celeste began to mend her relationship with her mother. It took a long time, but gradually, working side by side, caring for the little ones and running the castle and the kingdom (for the King was still hopelessly lost in his inner world), Celeste began to believe that her mother truly had changed. She deferred to Celeste sometimes and seemed to respect her opinions. She asked her questions about her travels and seemed to value the information Celeste had to offer about the world outside the kingdom. She gave Celeste the impression that she respected the life she had led and what it had taught her.
Thus mother and daughter were reunited. The younger children were happy, for they had loved Celeste and grieved for her, while secretly hating their mother for how she had treated their big sister. Their ‘goodness’ had merely been their terror of receiving the same treatment if they showed their true faces.
One day, Celeste went to the King in his study. She said sharply, “Father, look at me.” He stirred blearily in his armchair.
“Eh? Who dares disturb me?” he grumped. He did not recognize his daughter. He was difficult to convince. She had to rage at him, and shake him by the shoulders until she wanted to kill him. But she didn’t kill him. Her rage didn’t really want him dead, it just wanted him.
She had to be persistent. It was a long time before he became willing to leave his inner world for long. But when he finally noticed what had changed, and saw his long-lost daughter and his Queen being loving together, his joy and relief were felt throughout the kingdom and a great celebration was held.
And all was well, and they lived happily ever after.
Except Celeste, who never did fully trust and was always watchful, and who sometimes still needed to rage at her parents for the childhood she had lost. But slowly, ever so slowly, she began to remember that she was still a child inside where it counted. She began to let herself have a childhood. And this time, she had a Mother and Father who loved her. They cared for her when she forgot how competent she was, and when she remembered her broken places and was lost to them, they fed, bathed and supported her.
And when she was ready, love came in the form of a man who loved her completely, in all her pain, wounding, experience and strong new child’s heart, and she lived with him forever.
And then, they really all lived happily ever after.
Except when they were angry, or sad, or fearful, or bored.