"Mommy?" my five year old daughter Rose asks. She is on the balcony in her room, staring at the stars. "What are them twinkly things in the sky?"
"They're stars, Rosie," I answer.
"Why don't they show up during the day?" she wonders. "Do they disappear?"
"Do you want to hear the tale of why they don't show up during the day?" I ask her. She nods eagerly. "Go and get your PJ's on, and then I'll tell you the story while you're in bed.
Rose rushes off to her room, and I follow her. A minute later, she's in her Little Mermaid nightgown. "I'm ready, Mommy!"
"Are you in bed?" I ask her, at which she races into her bed.
"Am now," she says, sticking her tongue out at me. "Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"All right," I say. "Once there was a princess, and she was made of nothing but light. Anyone who looked at her swore that's all she was. Pure light.
"Really?" Rose asked. "I bet she was real pretty!"
"She was indeed," I confirmed. "So pretty that kings from all around the globe came to ask her to marry them.
"She said that the one who could prove to her that they loved her and not her beauty would be the one she married. The men brought her tokens off affection, brought her old enemies to her on bended knee.
"For a year men tried to prove their love to her. None succeeded. So she decided that she wasn't going to stay on Earth any longer without love. So she hung herself.
A man came into her throne room that afternoon, and was heartbroken to see this beauty dead. And there he cried.
"Fate is a tricky thing. And fate was in the woman of light's favor that day, despite her death.
"Then, there were no stars. But once the man started crying, the stars came. Millions, each an aspect of the woman made of pure light… and goodness."
"That's a nice story," Rose says. Her eyes are beginning to close.
"It's not done," I say. "Because this happened when it was dark outside, that is the only time that stars show, because that happened to be the woman's favorite time of day."
"You should tell Hugo that," Rose says, half asleep. I nod.
"Not today, though," I say. "Some other time perhaps, when you can help me."
"All right," she smiles. "Night, Mama."
Her eyes are closed, and her breathing is relaxed.
"Goodnight, Rose." I whisper.