A/N: See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.
Chapter 3: Half of What You See
Over the next five years, Mia continued to do great things for the people of Genovia, and Genovia prospered. Shortly after her elopement with Andrew, she issued a royal edict making Andrew a prince, and she chose not to make him a prince consort but a prince regnant with the authority to rule Genovia with her. And Andrew soon became Mia's greatest asset, helping Mia with her burdens as much as he could, and he became a fine ruler in his own right. Those five years were truly wonderful. And then one day in June of 2012, seven years into Mia's reign, she and Andrew told Joseph and me that they had decided to start trying for a baby, and that made our joy even more complete. But sadly, our joy was very short-lived, because the very next day, a horrific story came out in the press about Mia, and I was angrier than I'd ever been in my entire life. The story filled me with rage against my only grandchild, and that was putting it mildly. Video footage had been leaked to the press of Mia having sex with another man. One of the security guards showed me the footage personally. Had I not seen it with my own two eyes, I would never have believed it in a million years, but the guard confirmed that the footage was indeed legitimate and had not been doctored in any way.
After watching that disgusting footage, I left the security hub and raced upstairs, and then I furiously stomped my way to Mia's suite. I found her sitting on the edge of her bed in pure and utter shock. As I looked down at my granddaughter in those moments, I was overwhelmed with disgust. I was absolutely enraged. And as soon as I stomped up to where Mia was sitting, I slapped her so hard that she fell to the floor.
"WHAT IN THE LOWEST PIT OF HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! HOW ON EARTH COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE SO SELFISH AND STUPID?! Do you know what you've done, Mia?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE?!" I raged as tears began streaming down Mia's cheeks. She then began to sob as she continued lying at my feet. "GET UP AND FACE ME!" I shouted, and then Mia rose to her feet. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO YOUR HUSBAND?! TO YOUR COUNTRY?! You have disgraced our entire nation! Thanks to you, Genovia will probably be a worldwide laughingstock on the world stage for years to come! You are the queen of our country, and this country deserves so much better than you!" I yelled, and then Mia stood there in front of me for several long, silent moments and just sobbed.
Finally, she said in the tiniest voice, "It's not what it looks like, Grandma. It's not."
"I saw the footage! And Royal Security confirmed that it's real. What do you have to say for yourself?!"
Mia just couldn't bring herself to say anything. I stood with her for many long moments as she continued to sob.
"I wish I could explain it, Grandma, but it's so hard to talk about."
"It may be hard for you talk, but it certainly isn't hard for you to be unfaithful to your husband, is it?"
"Like I said, it's not what it looks like."
"How could it be anything else?! What are you going to do? Are you going to just stand there and try to deny what you've done? Are you going to try to shift the blame and blame somebody else for your appalling behavior?" I asked, and again, Mia just stood there in complete silence. "In the month before you ascended the throne, Joseph and I learned about how you were caught hiding in a closet with Nicholas Devereaux, and it was in that moment that I began to question whether or not you had the makings of a queen. But I chose not to listen to my doubts. I chose to lie to myself and convince myself that despite all of your stupid choices, despite all of your careless mistakes, you would eventually grow up and become a suitable ruler one day. But now, I finally see what a stupid fool I was to ever believe in you."
"Yeah…I guess you were," Mia said quietly.
"And it looks like Andrew was just as foolish as I was. Even after your appalling behavior all those years ago, sneaking out on a date with Nicholas just days before you were supposed to be getting married to Andrew, Andrew was still enough of a gentleman to take you back and not call off the wedding. He forgave and forgot, and he put it all behind him, and then when you two got back together, he trusted you once again. And just look at how you've repaid that trust. Now, if I had a time machine and I could go back in time and warn Andrew not to marry you, I would. Andrew is a wonderful man, a wonderful prince, and a wonderful husband, and you will never be worthy of him. Andrew deserves a better wife, and Genovia deserves a better queen. You had an emotional affair with another man while you and Andrew were first engaged years ago, and now, you're even cheating on Andrew physically. Why is it that you get such a kick out of cheating on such a fine man as Andrew? I wish I could understand why you enjoy being so stupid all the time. You make absolutely no sense, and you are such a fool!"
"I'm sorry, Grandma," Mia said in the smallest voice. "I really am."
"And saying sorry is supposed to fix all of this? I couldn't care less about your apologies. They're useless and they mean nothing."
"What do you want me to do? What can I do to fix this?"
"Nothing can fix this! You are the sorriest queen this country has ever had."
"Do you want me to go away for a while?"
"No. You do not get to run away from this, young lady. You are going to stay here and listen for yourself what the palace staff, the news reporters, and all your subjects say about you. The instant you chose to cheat on your husband, you also chose the consequences that come with it."
"Will you ever forgive me?" Mia asked in a whisper, and I shook my head.
"I don't know, Mia. I don't know," I told her solemnly, and a few moments later, I turned around and left.
When the story officially broke on the evening news that night, it just made me sick. And things weren't much better the next day when Lady Hughes and Lady Knight, the wives of two of our Parliamentarians, came to the palace to see me. They'd been friends of our family for many years now, and it was comforting to see them there that day. They were both in their seventies, both tall and slim with gray hair and blue eyes, and Lady Knight wore glasses.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, ladies?" I asked them as we were sitting together in the living area of my suite that day.
"We just want to let you know that we're so sorry about everything that's happened, Your Majesty," Lady Hughes responded. "Like you, we also have very difficult grandchildren. We understand the kind of burden you're carrying better than anyone else ever could. We both know how hard it is."
"Patricia is right, Your Majesty," Lady Knight agreed. "We both understand what you're going through right now. We understand the great pain you must be experiencing. You've been through so very much in your life. You had to get married to a man you didn't love; you had to endure the agony of losing Prince Philippe; you had to bear the burden of running our country all on your own for years. And now, that spoiled, selfish, terrible granddaughter of yours goes and pulls a stunt like this. It's all so very wrong and so very unfair to you."
"Well…I appreciate your sympathy and your concern, ladies. I really do. I'm still in utter shock at what Mia has done. This whole thing has just blindsided me. I never in a million years would have dreamed that Mia was capable of being unfaithful to her husband, especially so fine a husband as Andrew."
"We understand, Your Majesty," Lady Knight assured me. "We really do. Again, we're both just so, so sorry for you. You are an extraordinary person and you deserve so much better than Queen Amelia. You have always deserved better than her. If you'll forgive me for being blunt, Your Majesty, your granddaughter is so very selfish and careless and stupid. She's an utter fool! She never thinks about how her actions might affect others; how her actions might affect our whole country in the long-run; no, she only thinks about herself. She only cares about herself. She only cares about getting whatever it is that she wants in the moment."
"All these years, I was convinced that Mia had finally grown up and started taking her duty to our country seriously. But now, I think I see that my granddaughter is never, ever going to grow up," I told the ladies. They were there giving me so much sympathy, feeling so sorry for me, and I was all too happy to join them on the self-pity bandwagon. "If I had only known then what I know today, I never would have allowed her to ascend the throne. She simply does not have the makings of a queen, and she never will. She will never deserve her royal position. She will never be worthy of Genovia. Genovia truly does deserve a much better queen than Mia."
"Genovia certainly does," Lady Hughes agreed.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. You're going to get through this, just like you've gotten through so many other painful events in your life," said Lady Knight. "In the meantime, you just hang in there, honey. You've gotten through many other storms in your life, and I assure you, you will get through this one, too."
"Thank you. Thank you both," I told them. Then after a few minutes of small talk, Lady Hughes and Lady Knight said goodbye and walked out of my suite, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
"I still can't believe she did it," I told Andrew as we were sitting together on the loveseat in one of the sitting rooms later on that evening. "I am so disgusted with Mia right now. I will never understand her cruel and outrageous behavior. This is the second time in a row now that Mia has cheated on you, Andrew. I wouldn't blame you a bit if you decided to divorce Mia and leave Genovia behind and move on with your life. I know you deserve so much better than this."
In the next moment, Andrew shook his head and said to me, "I don't want to leave Mia, Queen Clarisse. No matter what happens, I'll stand by my wife forever."
"Forgive me for being blunt, but if you do choose to stay with Mia, you're a fool. This is not the first time my granddaughter has cheated on you, you know. I'm certain you haven't forgotten the emotional affair Mia had with Lord Devereaux while you two were engaged the first time. I'm concerned that if you stay with my granddaughter, she's just going to hurt you over and over and over again, and I don't want to see that happen to you. It's your decision if you want to stay, of course, but if you do, you'll be taking a very big gamble. You don't deserve all of this, Andrew. You deserve better. You really do."
"Queen Clarisse, I greatly appreciate your concern for me. I really do. But I'm not angry at my wife, and I don't blame her for what she did."
"How can you not?"
"Because I have all the pieces to the puzzle, and I'm able to see the bigger picture. Queen Clarisse, with all due respect, you don't have all the pieces to this puzzle. There are so many things that you don't know about. You don't have all the facts. And because you don't have all the puzzle pieces yet, the picture you're seeing is distorted. The picture you're seeing right now is not accurate."
"What puzzle pieces could possibly explain away everything that Mia has done to you?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. At least not right now. Try to be patient, Queen Clarisse. The truth always comes out sooner or later, and the time will come when you'll be able to see the big picture clearly and accurately. There's an old saying: never believe anything you hear and only half of what you see."
I shook my head then and said, "Well whatever the big picture says, you're still an amazing man to be so loving and forgiving towards Mia. I sure hope she appreciates what a beautiful husband she has."
"I know you can't understand this right now, but the opposite is true as well. Mia is a beautiful woman on both the inside and the outside. She's an amazing queen and an amazing wife, and I consider it a privilege to have her in my life, and I think she should be appreciated as well."
"Jesus gave you such a beautiful, patient heart," I told Andrew. "You really do have the patience of Job."
"Mia is also incredibly patient in a lot of ways. Don't underestimate her. She was always an incredible person, but ever since she and I came to faith in Christ two years ago, she's become even more incredible."
"I suppose that's true. I know God works in mysterious ways. But I'll admit that I haven't paid Christ much attention these past several years, especially after I lost Philippe. I blamed the Lord for the accident for a very long time, but I eventually realized that had He stopped that drunk diver from getting in his car that night, it would have overridden his free will, and it would have an act of spiritual rape. If God had chosen to force humanity to make all the right choices all the time, we would be mere robots, not human beings."
"You're absolutely right. And the same principle applies to the body of Christ as well. Jesus could have forced all of us to serve Him as His disciples after He died on the cross for us, but He chooses not to. Once we're born again, we have the choice to either carry our crosses and follow Jesus as one of His disciples, or to refuse to spend our lives in service to Him, because eternal life is a free, undeserved gift from God and not an earned reward. And Jesus is never going to force us to do anything against our will. That's just not who He is."
"That's true."
"Anyway, I thank you for all the kind things you've said to me this evening."
"I was just speaking the truth."
"Well again, thank you. Anyway, if you'll please excuse me now, I have some paperwork I need to finish up."
"Of course. Goodnight, Andrew."
"Goodnight, Queen Clarisse," said Andrew, and then he left.
Meanwhile, I began racking my brain, trying to so hard to figure out what could possibly be going on that would cause Andrew to forgive Mia so quickly and easily. Everything was so strange, and life made absolutely no sense at all. Somehow, I'd ended up in the Twilight Zone, and there was no guarantee that I would be leaving it anytime soon.