"What did you decide to order?"

Gilbert was sitting with Anne that evening, looking at the book catalogs again. Anne had explained her worry about books that had fathers in them. Gilbert felt for her, but before he could say or do anything to make her feel better, Anne explained that Marilla and Matthew had helped her make some choices, and now she was showing Gilbert what they were.

"Henny Penny- I don't even know what that is, but Marilla suggested it."

Gilbert explained the plot: "It's about a hen who thinks the sky is falling. A nut landed on her head. Oh, and then there's another Henny Penny story where she's wearing a coat, and then she and some other animals go to market, but Henny Penny can't go because she's stuck- she got her coat caught in the door. The story's all about how to get her free so she can go on to the market."

"Why doesn't she just take her coat off?" Anne asked.

Gilbert, his eyes twinkling, said, "Shhh! Anne, you'll spoil the ending!"

Anne couldn't help laughing.

Gilbert addressed the baby: "I'm sorry, little Cordelia, I hope you weren't listening to that. She just ruined the story for you."

Seeing Anne laugh, he felt his heart lift up.

Anne went on, "And I'll order the three little pigs, and the billy goats gruff. And some fairy tales. Thumbelina, Cinderella,… some others, I forget." She looked at the catalog. "Oh, this one is pretty. Look at the cover! There's nothing on it but painted ivy and roses. Maybe I'll get it. What's it called? Rapunzel…"

Realizing she was making a mistake, he quickly said, "No, not Rapunzel."

"What's wrong with Rapunzel?" Anne asked, not familiar with that story.

"Uh…nothing. It's just not a good story."

"Gilbert. Tell me."

"Well, it's about a man who's wife is pregnant, and she's very sick, and the only thing she wants to eat is rampion, but the only place there was any rampion was a witch's garden. It was next to them so he just climbed over the wall and stole some-"

"Why do they live next door to a witch?" Anne interrupted.

"I…I don't know, Anne. That's just how the story goes. One night the witch catches him, and she says he has to choose- his wife or his baby. The witch will put a spell on his wife that will kill her, unless the man promises to give her their baby once it's been born."

"This is a children's story?" Anne asked.

He nodded.

"Well, that can't be the end. What did he do?"

"He…uh, well, he didn't want his wife to die, so he promised the witch she could have their baby."

"Oh," Anne said. "Did his wife know?"

"I guess not. The wife kept on eating rampion-"

"What's rampion, anyway?" Anne wondered.

"I don't know- bellflower, I think. Anyway, she kept on eating it and she wasn't sick anymore, but then when the baby came, the witch took it."

"You'd think her husband would have come up with some sort of plan in the time they had before the baby came," Anne pointed out. "At least they could have moved away. But no, they just kept on living there, right next door to the witch, and just waited around till the baby was born, for her to take it away?"

"I never said the story made a lot of sense."

"Did the witch…did the witch kill the baby?"

"No, she just kept her. Then when the girl turned twelve she locked her away in a high tower."

"Why on earth?" Anne asked.

"She was jealous of her beauty. The girl was in the tower for two years, but then one day the king's son came riding through the forest on a horse and he saw her hair and climbed up it-"

"He climbed her hair?" Anne asked, making a face.

"I forgot that part. She had really long hair."

"Well, go on."

"So, um…the king's son visited her pretty often…and then one day when the witch came back, Rapunzel asked why her dresses had started feeling so tight around the waist-"

"Oh, Gilbert!"

"That's what it says in the story!" he said, his hands up.

"And this is for children?" Anne asked. "It doesn't give any detail about that part of things, does it?"

"…Only that the king's son really, really liked visiting Rapunzel."

"I should say so! …Wait a minute, she was only fourteen!"

He nodded. "Well, she didn't know anything. So anyway, one day the witch pushed the king's son out of the tower and he fell and landed on thorns that went straight through his eyes-"

"I hope this book doesn't have pictures!" Anne said, horrified.

"He wandered around the forest, blind, for years-"

"How did he eat? What did he live on?"

"Plants, I guess. So-"

"But he couldn't see, how would he know what plants were safe to eat?" Anne reminded him. Then she had a new thought: "Do you think the thorns were still in his eyes? Or did he pull them out?"

"I don't know, Anne. But one day he was found by a boy and a girl- twins- who led him back to their mother, Rapunzel, and she realized of course that he was the father of their twins, and…they lived happily ever after?"

Gilbert had never thought of how this story sounded.

Anne's eyes were big. "Well, I won't buy that book!"

Gilbert gave her a sheepish grin. "You won't have to. I have it."

"You heard that awful story as a small child?" Anne asked.

"How'd you think I know it so well?" He laughed. "Brother's Grimm. First version. Apparently there's a second version, though, that doesn't mention the bit about her dresses getting tight around the waist. They changed it."

Anne shook her head. "Version one or two are both out. Ugh."

Then she sighed. "There's not much else here to choose from. Everything's got fathers. I'm sad for the poor little thing...almost makes me not even want to keep it, if it'll have to be told someday about who it's...father...is."

"Anne…"

"What?"

Gilbert took a breath, then let it out. "Nothing. It's your decision. I shouldn't interfere. But I really don't think you should worry too much about it. Just…wait and see what the future brings."

"How is the future going to fix the past?" Anne asked him. "Gilbert," she said, starting to see what was in the back of his mind. "I know you want to get married."

"Yes, I do."

"It isn't that I don't. But...even if we did, it wouldn't be for years and years." Anne sighed. "And I suppose you think that if we get married, the bit about fathers won't matter anymore. But it will. It will. And even if it didn't, at some point he or she is going to realize that the date of our wedding was years after the date of their birth!"

"I understand."

"Gilbert, even if we do get married, you'll probably never have children, because as I said before, I just can't do that. I can't…be intimate. It's not possible."

"I understand."

"So you'll have no children of your own, and to add insult to injury, the only parenting you'll do is for the child your wife had with another man."

"I understand."

"Stop saying that!"

"Well, I do. What am I supposed to say? None of that is anything I didn't already know! If you were saying it thinking you were going to scare me off, you haven't. You can't."

Anne leaned into him with a sigh. She loved him for all his patient and gentle ways, but she was grumpy at him for the very same reason.