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the audience. “One of them must have captured my heart. Was it a young lord with a castle on the hill and a coach-and-four?”
    A tight spotlight came up on an aristocrat in a black coat and ascot tie.
    “Was it the powerful businessman with a keen eye for finance and a generous nature?”
    A second spotlight on a heavyset gentleman consulting a gold pocket watch.
    “Or was it another? Someone without name or coin, but who had instead a heart filled with love for me?”
    The third spotlight illuminated a young man dressed in shades of brown and gray. He turned his pockets out to reveal they were empty, then unfurled his fingers like a magician to produce a single red rose.
    Bertie nodded. “I’d like to think so.”
    Bertie’s Mother accepted the flower from him as the lights faded on the other two suitors. She stood up to put a print Sunday dress, a silver hair comb, and the red rose into a small suitcase.
    “I left the theater,” she said, “and traveled to a small cottage by the sea.”
    Scenery for a railway station replaced the dressing room. Smoke boiled across the stage, and sound effects hissed to imitate a train coming to rest. Bertie’s Mother stepped onto a platform outfitted with a leather seat and a large, floating window. She placed her suitcase in the overhead luggage rack, sitting as the “train” left the station.
    The compartment heaved and rocked in place, accompanied by a
chug-chug-chug
that blared through the loudspeakers. Silhouettes of buildings and light posts flashed on the back wall, followed by fences, trees, and the occasional cow. With a final hiss and another blast of smoke, the “train” came to rest.
    The sign overhead proclaimed it A N O RDINARY S TATION . Bertie’s Mother alighted, and her young man greeted her with an embrace. They exited together as the lights cross-faded to an unassuming home in the countryside. Laundry danced on the line. A large tree provided shade. Bertie’s Mother entered Stage Left. She collected the pasteboard clothes off the line and hung out stiff sheets and towels.
    “I like to imagine she was a simple person,” Bertie said, “with an uncomplicated life. She married her lover and raised a family. She looked beautiful, even when doing her chores.”
    Bertie’s Mother smiled at the audience, her starry eyes sparkling in the spotlight.
    “I picture her with my father, along with five or six of my brothers and sisters.” Bertie paused to think for a moment before she added, “And a dog.”
    “Of course there was a dog,” Bertie’s Mother said.
    Bertie’s Father led a procession of six Children arranged tallest to shortest. The Family Dog, on all fours, sat on his haunches and barked with enthusiasm.
    “Then I arrived,” Bertie said, watching from the side of the stage. “The youngest. The darling. The apple of every eye.”
    Bertie’s Mother reached under her apron and pulled out a wriggling bundle. The Family gathered around to sigh and coo. “Isn’t she precious?”
    “One day,” Bertie said, “when I was but a babe of six months—”
     
    “What do ye mean, when ye were a babe o’ six months? Ye can’t remember that far back if ye were an infant!” Nate said from the audience.
    “Don’t interrupt.” Bertie lifted a hand to her eyes to cut the glare from the lights. The fairies and Nate sat Fifth Row, Center.
    “I’d be willin’ t’ believe it, if ye were two or three years old,” Nate argued. “But six months?”
    “Who’s narrating this story?” demanded Bertie.
    He sighed. “Ye are.”
    “Then shut up. You didn’t protest when I was discussing things that happened before I was born.”
    “All right, all right.” Nate crossed his arms over his chest and scowled mightily. “But yer no doubt gettin’ it wrong.”
    “Shush!” Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, Bertie, and Bertie’s Mother hissed at him.
     
    “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I was a wee child of indeterminate