Mistress Butterfly

A twist on a classic story. Maybe things didn't end as badly as they seemed?....

Mistress Butterfly

Once upon a time there was a man who traveled to a distant land and fell in love with a young native girl with stunning bright blue eyes. Even though the people of this land were hated by the people of his own land, he of himself harbored no ill will towards them, and neither they toward he, so no one was adverse to the union when he married this girl. However, not but a month had passed after their marriage than he was called back to his own land to attend to business.

He apologized to his young bride and vowed to return very soon, so she needn’t worry. However, soon days turn to weeks and then months. She gave birth to the manchild he’d left in her stomach upon leaving, and the boy became a half a year old in addition to that. There was still no word of the young girl’s husband and so she began to don mourner’s clothes, thinking the worst must have happened to her love, after all, why else would he leave her?

However, what she didn’t know, was that in his homeland, the man’s family had learned of his marriage to this “filthy foreigner” and had reprimanded him severely until his heart was completely hardened against her and her race. His family then gave him to wife a young maid of their own race.

He stayed with her for all those months until his heart had turned so black and greedy that he again remembered his first wife in the faraway land, and the home and money therein. So, he brought his second wife to the foreign land with him and found his first wife, demanding she give him all that she had, including her son, and of herself to stay out of his life forever. 

The girl felt so betrayed, and so miserably jealous of his new wife, who would take away not only her husband but even her son that she plunged into her heart a dagger and fell to the ground in bitter death.

Then the man took all that he had owned in this foreign place, including his son, and returned to his homeland, where he showered lavish gifts onto his second bride for the remainder of his days, and passed the child off as being born of this second wife.

Now, to someone who knows of this family and to hear their twisted tale, may very well be shocked and disgusted indeed, but they would only know half of the tale. For you see, the second wife of the man was not so terrible as you may think, but in fact  lived in more misery than his first wife had ever known.

In truth, she had never wanted to steal away the son or husband of the foreign girl, but she herself had been so very young at the time she was forced to wed him that she did not have a choice. And few people know that at the moment the foreign girl had stabbed herself, she had lunged for the knife in an effort to save her life, but had been too late. Then when she was brought back to her homeland, although she loved the boy like her own son, the man scarcely paid any attention to either of them. He gave her many gifts, yes, but only as a half hearted way to apologize for how he’d strike her in his anger and lay with other women. 

Still, the girl dealt with this misery secretly locked away in her own heart. Even those of her own country and race laid judgement and hate upon her, believing her to be a lying w***e, as one could only assume after hearing a few of the details about her family.

The only person who did understand how she felt was her young stepson. The boy in fact, grew more and more everyday to look like his true mother, and no one in the land really believed that his stepmother is the one who gave birth to him. They knew he must be of mixed blood, and were just as cruel to him as they were to his mother. 

She tried her best to raise him and be a good mother to him nevertheless, as she felt so bad about what had happened to his real mother. However, he would never call her “Mother”, and said many a time that he did not truly consider her family, but that he loved her. 

This always confused the woman very much, but she preferred not to think of it as a bad thing, even if he had deduced that she couldn’t possibly be his real mother. As long as he still loved her, and they were able to get along and escape her husband’s cruelty together, then truly it did not matter. 

However, the older the boy got, the crueler her husband was towards him, and finally the woman could not take it any more. She decided to leave one night, taking the son with her, who was already a young man himself. To their shock, her husband caught them as they were fleeing, and in the fray his son stabbed him and killed him. 

The wife and the son decided to bury the body and return home and never speak of it again. No one in the town seemed to notice or care that the boy’s father was gone. His wife and son were much better off because of it, and in fact the two grew closer every day. They became the best of friends, as they truly were not very far apart in age.

One day they realized that they could not hide their affections any longer, and came to know that they were in love. Although they were not related by blood at all, they knew that no one in their land would accept them for who they were, for she had once been something of his mother. 

So the couple escaped to the homeland of the boy’s real mother, where they were wed and graciously accepted by the people of that land. One day they had a child of their own, a young girl with charcoal black hair and brilliant blue eyes. 

And a strange thing happened when the babe spoke her first words. These words were spoken to her mother, and to both parents’ great surprise they were not the simple sounds that most children first make, but was the phrase, “Thank you.”

Author's Note

Based on the original classic story. The original's ending depressed me to no end, and for those who feel the same, perhaps this twist on it will lift your spirits a little bit. (c) No One Special 2011. Number 9 of the No One Special Fairy Tales.

Reviews

[Omegax45]

I must say, you did a good job at giving this story a happy ending instead of sticking to the original storyline.If it anyone's fault for the husband to turn out like he did, it was his family's for not accepting his first wife and making him into the monster he became.

[piggy]

hmm, sounds like something Woody Allan would write.
quite gossipy in nature as everyone had an opinion when in fact, they should have minded their own business and by the time they did, it was too late. But I guess there wouldn't have been a tale to tell otherwise.

a good read, thanks