The Lost Story

by Meg Shaffer

STORYTELLER CORNER Moms When you read fairy tales, you’ll learn fast there are only two types of mothers you’ll meet in those stories. One—good and dead. Two—bad and alive. Fathers usually fare better. They live longer. However, without their wives around, they tend to make very poor decisions. Snow White had a good and dead mother. Then her father remarried her wicked stepmother. Cinderella’s father also exercised very poor taste when looking for wife number two. The father in “Rumpelstiltskin” took parental bragging to a whole new level when he swore to all who would listen that his daughter could spin straw into gold. One imagines if his wife had been alive, she would have quickly shut those rumors down by explaining to all and sundry that she’d married a narcissist. There is a third type of mother in fairy tales, neither good and dead nor bad and alive, and though a rare figure, she does have a part to play in some stories, including this one. That would be the fairy godmother, of course. Sometimes she doesn’t even have to do magic to bestow a gift upon a worthy young prince or princess. Sometimes the godmother is just a good mother. And Emilie was right. Bobbi knew.