My mother had a love of story that I suspect began in her childhood as a child neglected by parents grieving the death of their son. She clung to the idea that she deserved a happy ending because of all she’d gone through, as all poor, oppressed fairytale characters did. On the surface, it seems she got it, a husband who gave her security, the two sons and daughter she wanted. But this was marred by my father’s two decade struggle with bipolar syndrome and her own lupus that may have developed from the stress. Though it was largely in remission in her last decade, we would be reminded of her faulty immune system whenever she had a mild wound which would end up leading to debridement surgery. Perhaps it was what left her unable to override the infection that caused her death.

I wanted to give her a happy ending. I wanted to cure my dad. I couldn’t even with the help of my determined psych major husband. I suppose I knew deep inside I couldn’t make someone happy if he chose to remain bitter, which is why I wrote stories where I could dispense happy endings to those who deserved them.

Quite a few of my stories are revisions of fairy tales. Despite my hunger for happy endings, I am wary of the promise of fairy tales. Even if you get your big, explosive, happy ending, life goes on in a course of good and bad. And all you can hope is there will be more good and bad. And that is why I stripped a childhood story I wrote of all Cinderella trappings except the helpful creature that creates a needed dress. There is no ball, the prince is an ordinary man from a well-off family and the happy ending consists of them going off to new adventures (This is “The Naturalist’s Daughter” in Fly by Night.)

Some say we need the promise of magic and miracles, but I don’t know. I don’t see it made my mom happy to find the dreams that got her through a miserable childhood didn’t bear fruit. With social media, we see this more than ever, that stars generally fizzle out and live ordinary lives. Far better to embrace that life is made up of a multitude of small moments and you need to treasure those you can.

I guess she knew that too. She had many little stories and served up her fiascos often as anecdotes for people to laugh at. Maybe we couldn’t give her a momentous happy ending, but she had happy moments enough. She made the most she could out of the imperfect life she was given. That’s all we can really do, I guess.

Fairy tales and big dreams seem to have gone out of fashion. I am kind of done of them, but I don't think we should reject them entirely. Just value little dreams as well as big ones. Maybe more.