Every Day in May (grand prize winner) ✔

May 8th

I've been back to the tower many times. Hundreds, in fact.

Your jaw just dropped, didn't it? Thousands of people pass through the Tower every month—guests, advisors, staff. You've never met any of them, have you? It wasn't terribly difficult to keep us separated, even though we've spent many hours under the same roof. I was a weekly guest for a number of years. How that came to be is a story in itself. 

Your mother, Francesca, is a Lotus-Born. She was plucked from the mud of her upbringing and chosen from a myriad of girls to marry the Leader. Every few generations our esteemed rulers do this—select a wife from the common folk rather than from among the daughters of his richest supporters. Your father chose a fisherman's daughter as his bride, an act which had the desired effect of endearing him to the masses. 

The Leader—how humble he is!  To welcome a Lotus-Born into the Tower—how egalitarian! 

The practice of joining oneself to a Lotus-Born had not taken place since the time of your great-great-grandfather.  Marrying Francesca did indeed win him favor with the people, if only for a while.  Your mother was young and lovely and one of them. She was their most treasured flower.  On her wedding day, they sent her off to the Tower with a thousand candles set afloat upon lily pads.  The glowing lights followed her as she walked along the canal to her new home.  That night a feast was thrown in her honor; your mother's kin spent several months' worth of rations supplying the tables with mutton and pork.

Francesca is a Lotus-Born. Only your father never has treated her like a precious flower, has he?

Your mother has served her purpose: she made the people love him and produced an Heir. That said, he never let her forget her roots and that she should be grateful to him for accepting such tainted blood into his bed.  He despises everything about her.  However, at her request, he allowed me to visit her once a week for several years. 

The cherry blossoms had just begun their annual descent.  Past bloom, I remember watching white petals fall from branch to earth when the headmistress came to tell me I was to visit the Leader's wife.  Several weeks had passed since the CULL Day festivities.  I'd been thinking less and less about the matching flaxen-haired boy and woman.  Then, there I was dressed in my best, curtsying for the very woman whose eyes had welled up as I sang for her husband.  She took one look at me and began sobbing again.  I stood awkwardly before her, studying the tangled pattern on the carpet beneath my feet.

Eventually, she composed herself and sat us down to tea.  A servant offered me crumpets topped with clotted cream and sugar (real sugar!) to sweeten the bitter drink.  I worried that my lack of etiquette would end in embarrassment or that I'd unintentionally offend her.  I had never dined so formally.  I hadn't seen a fork in ages.  At school, we used our hands to scoop food off of tin plates. Instead of scolding me for my un-lady like behavior, however, Francesca put me at ease.  She asked about my favorite this and that, my schooling, my hopes for the future.

I answered her questions politely, though I was still perplexed.  Why was I there rather than the bevy of rich girls who must have been vying for the opportunity to sit at tea with her?

We talked for a while, then your mother rang a tiny silver bell summoning a servant to take me out of the Tower and back to school.  I still had trouble believing I'd been invited to meet with her.  What a story I'd have to tell the other girls! 

Before the servant arrived, Francesca leaned in towards me.  My eyes grew wide. I never would have expected the wife of the Leader to wear such a desperate expression. 

"Will you come back?" 

She could have commanded me to return.  Instead she didn't order me, but asked.  In her mind, I had a choice.

Of course I said "yes."  This unknown burden she carried affected me as though it were my own.  I would have said anything if it meant her heart would be lightened.