You are a child.
You know nothing of the outside world but you see everything. Every gesture, every glance, every hesitation and every reaction. You see the mayor watch you and your mother with a critical eye. You see the odd doctor with his hard eyes and cruel mouth, smirking, observing, his gaze on you, on your mother, on—
People call him Father, Reverend, the Minister. His name is Arthur Dimmesdale, or at least that's what you've heard Mayor Bellingham call him, and he is young and handsome and maybe a little familiar. When he sees you and your mother, his hand grips at his heart. When his eyes un-focus and drift to unseen places, he grips at his heart. He'll do it in his sermons and when he walks down the street.
You wonder if he is hurt, inside or out. He's friends with the doctor, even if the doctor doesn't seem like the kind to have friends, so maybe…maybe it's the doctor's fault.
But what do you know, people ask you. How could you possibly know that? They doubt you and think you can't understand their lives—but you see the world, clearer and sharper than they ever could. But—
What do you know? You are a child.
–
There is a courtyard at the center of Town Hall, and in it roses. White roses, pink roses, yellow, lavender, scarlet. Through the open door you can hear your mother and Mayor Bellingham, and her voice is a hiss unlike any you've ever heard.
"You can't, you can't—" she says, and the mayor cuts her off. "I'm only thinking of Pearl's best interests, Hester. Can you really tell me that you're doing all you can for her?"
"I'm her mother," but she says it in such a way that you wonder who she's trying to convince. The mayor? The man in the sky she's tried to tell you about, even if it makes no sense at all? Everyone believes in the sky man, they swear by him and beg him for things when they think no one is around to hear. Just a moment ago the mayor had an old man ask you Who is your creator? And you knew, you knew they wanted you to say the sky man's name, point out this God as your creator.
But how do they know? You've seen television shows and you know that for something to be proven, there has to be proof. And where is theirs? So you told them the first thing that came to mind, which was provoked by the roses in the courtyard, and the bright red roses that grew outside the courtyard, starkly bright against that marble front as you walked down the pavement.
No one made you. Your mother saw you growing on that rosebush and she plucked you right off and made you hers. And even though those men didn't like your answer, they were too shocked to stop you from running out to the cloister.
All the roses in the world aren't enough to block out your mother's shriek. Her voice rises and shatters like the cup she dropped when she first heard Mayor Bellingham was considering taking you away. Stick your head back inside and see her wild eyes, her grasping hands clawing at the Reverend's sleeve. She begs, she pleads, she acts as though he is the sky man, as though he has the power to show the mayor and the old man and the strange doctor that she should keep you. And she should. Maybe you live in a rundown duplex on the edge of town, and maybe she isn't always home to help you with your homework because the tailor shop makes her work five days a week for little money, but she's your mother and she's trying her best.
It's not her fault people paint a red A on the hood of her car, or carve it into the front door and call her names when she passes. Your classmates do the same to you, just without the paint or the carving. You read in a library book a line you thought fit—The sins of the father will be visited by the son. And after you thumbed through a dictionary you understood that, in a way, it applied to you.
And then, he speaks. The Reverend has a strong voice that's full of something you can't name, but it makes you want to listen to him forever. He defends you and your mother and you adore him for it, and other reasons besides. For once he doesn't reach for his heart, and if you hear something in his voice that reminds you of your own, you say nothing of it. He is a good man, you can tell. Surely he'll step up again some day and explain what pains his heart.
And you pressed your cheek against his hand because it's the most affection you can think to offer, and when he kisses your brow you think There, that's enough.
And away you go, with your mother trailing behind.
–
You find them in the front yard. Your mother sits on the front steps with two empty glasses beside her, and he saws away at what may be on the way to becoming a new front door. To look at him you would never expect him to be a handy type, but the lines are straight and his movements sure.
Today is you mother's day off, which is why she's here to greet you after school. She gives you a smile brighter than the sun, reaches a hand out to beckon you near.
But something isn't right. You can see it in her open face, her clear eyes. All the gloom and unhappiness has been swept right out of her, and it's…unsettling. This is not the mother you know.
The Reverend stops sawing and looks to you standing on the sidewalk on the far side of the road. Is he to blame for your mother's odd transformation? In his hesitant smile you can see the same newly born happiness. Crossing the street is like leaping over a river you assume to be too wide—but then you're walking across the faded grass and pressing your hand against the old door that sits propped against the aspen tree, dragging your nails over the A. You know not what it could stand for, but you know it's important and it makes your mother who she is.
She frowns at your actions. Her brow draws down and the corners of her lips make fine lines in her face, and like magic, she's returned to you. Your feet carry you past the Reverend and into her arms.
"Why is he here?" You whisper in her ear. "To help us," she says back. "He wants to stay and help us."
You step back to look at him and, loud enough for him to hear but still directed at your mother, you ask "Will he stay with us forever?"
The silence is a tangible thing that weighs the air and presses down on your head. Your mother stares at you, her hand ghosting through your black hair, wonder in her eyes. The Reverend is stunned, surprised, and his uncomfortableness is easily seen, felt like a brushing of skin against skin.
He extends a hand. Smiles. You pull out such a wicked grin that your mother gasps and he blinks, slow and deliberately as an owl.
You slip past your mother and into the empty house, hearing nothing behind you.
–
The odd, cruel doctor stands somewhere behind you, but you're more interested in the Reverend's hand around yours, his arm around your mother's waist. His skin is cold and clammy, not from fear but from illness, but he hasn't clutched at his heart since the day you came home to find him in your front yard.
"It was me!" He calls out, here on the bandstand above the masses. Where he was supposed to give a blessing for the town's voters this day he instead delivers a confession. "I am the father! I am the adulterer!"
There is that note again, in his voice. You've heard it in your own when you argue with your mother or read aloud for the class. It draws in the attention of others, commands them to hear and believe. The Reverend's hand goes slack around yours.
The crowd is a sea of shock and disdain. Their beloved Reverend, their servant of the sky man, has done something that none of them can approve of. Adulterer.
The word hits you as a revelation. A is for Adulterer.
"What have you done?" The doctor roars. Those are the words of power.
The Reverend falls.
He takes your mother down with him, she vainly trying to keep him on his feet. You know that even if he has stopped clutching at his heart, it doesn't mean his weakness has gone away. Maybe, maybe it's that doctor's fault.
The Reverend gives you a part happy, part sad grin. It's a fleeting thing, there and gone again—the most glorious, beautiful half-smile you have ever seen, just a tilting and parting of the lips, a flash of teeth. You love it more than anything else you've seen in this world.
"Pearl," he murmurs, "Pearl, please. My little Pearl…"
You lower down to your knees. Place your hands on his shoulders and kiss him softly, just as he wanted. "My Pearl," he says, his eyes shiny-bright and too much like a doll's. Your tears fall on your father, dampening the cloth that lay over his heart.
He bids you and your mother farewell, with a voice that is weak and dying and suitable, somehow, in an awful way.
You swear, to yourself and to him, that you will make him proud one day. His eyes un-focus for the last time, and with him goes the weary lines of a soul aged beyond its years. All that is left is a face that is young and handsome, and maybe a little familiar.
This was for a school assignment that asked us to write a short-story of a modernised version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.