“And they lived happily ever after.” My father closed The Little Mermaid. It was my favourite bedtime story, and the one he read me most nights before I went to sleep. I had preferred the Grimms’ version, but after having a recurring nightmare of my tongue being cut out by a witch, my father switched to the adaptation with Ariel and Prince Eric.
“Father?” I asked as he reached to shut off my lamp.
“Yes, Grace?”
“Do people really live happily ever after?” I grabbed at the edges of my covers, feeling the indentations of its seams.
My father ran his hands along his forehead, messing his thick eyebrows, wiry hairs sticking out in every direction. He exhaled. “I’m not sure. I think people want to be happy, and they can be happy most of the time. But I don’t think anyone is happy all of the time.”
I reflected for a moment. “But why not?”
“Because if you were happy all of the time, you wouldn’t appreciate it. You need balance and duality in life. If we didn’t feel sadness, happiness would mean nothing.”
Staring at him, I furrowed my little brow.
He petted my head. “Imagine if it was light all the time. The sun was shining. It was bright and beautiful every single day. If it never got dark, how would you sleep? If it never rained, how would you know that the sun was beautiful?”
I thought about how the rain and darkness made me feel. I liked the days when we stayed inside because it was too wet and muddy to play outside. Mother would let me put my hands in the clay, moulding misshapen mugs and vases before she’d dip them in glaze and fire them in the kiln. “I want to write stories about people who are happy, even when it rains.” I decided.
My father sighed. “You don’t want to be a writer, Grace.”
“Yes I do,” I declared, sitting upright. “I want to be just like you.”
He rubbed around his mouth, the stubble on his face making a scratchy noise. “Come with me, I want to show you something.” My father pulled the blankets off and led me downstairs, reaching in his pocket for a key before unlocking his office door. I had hardly ever been inside. Father’s office was off-limits.
The room was painted a deep mahogany. The entire space was lined with bookshelves filled with hundreds of books. There were piles of books on a table next to a striped sofa. Books on the floor, books on his desk, and books next to his computer. There was a typewriter in the corner surrounded by scribbled-up pages of paper, and even more books.
He began to dig in his filing cabinet as I stood there, shivering in my nightgown.
When he turned around, he was holding a thick file folder. He placed it on his desk and motioned for me to come look.
“These are all rejection letters,” my father said as he thumbed through the enormous stack. “For every story I have published, there are about fifty rejection letters that come first. If you want to write, you can’t just write about being happy. Because no one is just happy. No one is just anything.”
I watched as he flipped, page after page, laying them flat on the desk.
I stopped wanting to be a writer after that night.