In this story, I am not the mother. I’m putting my foot down. I will play any other role – huntsman, lady in waiting, little man in the wood, ugly stepsister, wily fox, old woman sitting by her hut, old man carrying a bundle of sticks on his back. Anything to avoid my own clichés. The golden harp. The vulture at the gallows. The day unfolds. I find myself picking socks up off the living room floor, stirring dinner in a pot, driving children in various directions. At 1 AM, I’m still awake, trying to catch up on last week’s emails, when the casting director calls my landline, drunk again. I have the perfect role for you, he says. You’re going to love it! And I know. I know. It was written just for me.

There was always a wood you could slip into where no one would ever find you. I knew this before I knew my own name – a strange bird hovering in every tree, a locked door when the window was wide open. I entered and found not what I’d come for, but another silence, wind blocked by trees. When the story began, I was already wandering inside of it, words on every signpost, subject-verb-object, the narrative of desire. I was lost, but not irrevocably. That was the idea, that eventually the path would lead somewhere – a hut full of dwarves, a house made of candy, bread and shelter – which is all any of us ever wanted. But by the time I discovered there was nothing to discover, it was too late. I wouldn’t have left, even if I could.