Disclaimer: Sugarpony neither owns nor wishes to own The Scarlet Letter.
---
Chapter Five
Mother
---
I have left my mother, Hester Prynne, to discuss last because her story is the most complicated. Mother lived for seven years with her scarlet letter and myself, both constant reminders of her torture. She bore the weight of the punishment for not only her own sin but also the sin of the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. And throughout all of this, she still cared for me. But why?
Roger Chillingworth was a complicated man, but Mother confuses me even more than he. I was the cause of her despair. I served only to harm her even more than the Puritans with my questions and mocking of the scarlet letter. Why, then, did she care for me?
The day in the woods when I persisted Mother about the letter, we met Reverend Dimmesdale. Once again, Mother told me to run and play, and I did so. When I returned to her, however, she was changed; she had freed her hair from its confines; the sunlight which always had run away from her was shining brightly on her from; the scarlet letter was lying a distance away from her. I was afraid because this was not my mother. My mother always modestly kept her hair out of sight; my mother always frightened the sunshine away; my mother always wore the scarlet letter which was now lying on the forest floor. I was afraid, and I screamed and cried and hollered until she once again became the pitiful, tortured woman I had always known as Mother. Yet she was not angered at me. I was the one who forced her to wear the letter even though she despised it so. Why did she care fore me?
Why did Mother love me? Mother has always loved and cared for me even though I rarely ever returned her affections. Now, therefore, I wish to repent for my own sin. I wish to use this vast fortune which the Black Man bestowed upon me to love and care for Mother as she has always done for me.
Mother needs my help to overcome her sin, her scarlet letter.
I will help her.
---
AN: That's the end of the story. I know it's not much, but hey, at least it's an actual update. so let me know what you think!