“I know I wasn’t always easy on you, dear, but it was for your own good. Everything was for you, always for you. Once you’re queen, things are going to get a lot better for us, you’ll see. Just make him happy, dear, and everything will be fine.”

When he crawls on top of her, the sickly sweet smell of too much wine makes her queasy. Lips that are soft and gentle yet all wrong kiss her lips, her neck, her shoulder, her clavicle. She releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“ … make him happy, dear … ”

Hands that are smooth and warm yet all wrong lift her nightgown, part her legs, graze the place where only her own fingers have touched so far. The bed groans beneath his shifting weight. Her heart pounds so hard she feels it in her eardrums.

“ … make him happy, dear … ”

It hurts! Mommy it hurts!

“ … make him happy, dear … ”

The bed thumps against the wall like a giant metronome. The tearing and burning between her legs turn as jagged as his erratic breaths. She digs her nails into the sheet and squeezes her eyes shut. She swallows a cry before it comes out, or else she would cry forever.

As his seed spills into her body, a name spills from his lips into the darkness, and it is not hers.

“ … make him happy, dear … ”

She had hoped that it had all been a dream, but the morning light catches the tiny patch of red on the bedsheet, and the soreness has not gone away. Before she changes out of her nightgown, Mother floats in like a ghost and peels the white fabric over her head.

Did you make him happy, Mother asks. Yes, she nods. And then a gentle kiss planted on her cheek, the first in what must have been years. The last time it happened, she could not have been more than ten. She had showed Mother the sprout of what had been, only moments before, just an apple seed. Then, as now, her exact words are the same.

“Mommy’s so proud of you, Regina.”