English fairy tale — Retold for grown-ups
Jack's mom told him to sell the cow. He came back with beans.
His mom's name was Margaret. Nobody ever asks. She'd been running the farm alone for six years since Jack's dad died. The cow stopped giving milk a month ago. That was it. Last thing of value they had.
"Sell her. Get the best price you can."
He came home with a handful of beans some guy on the road told him were magic.
She didn't yell. She was just quiet for a really long time. Then she threw the beans out the window and they went to bed hungry.
The beanstalk was there in the morning. Thick as a tree, going up through the clouds.
"See?" said Jack.
"I see a plant. I don't see flour."
He went up while she was in the henhouse. Up and up, through the clouds. Above them: grey land, a road, a huge castle.
Inside, everything was giant-sized. The giant's wife found him first and hid him in the oven. "He eats people."
The floor shook. "FEE FI FO FUM."
The wife calmed the giant down. Fed him. He fell asleep.
Jack crept out. On the table, a hen was sitting there. As he watched, it laid a golden egg.
He grabbed the hen and ran. Down the beanstalk, screaming for an axe.
Margaret was at the bottom. She'd been standing there for hours. Holding an axe. Because she already knew.
She swung. The beanstalk came down.
They kept the hen. One golden egg a day. Margaret sold them carefully, one at a time, the way she did everything.
Jack grew up. Married someone smarter than him, which he was smart enough to appreciate.
The beans had worked. The dumb, reckless thing he did had actually worked. Margaret knew it. It drove her nuts.
But Jack went back to the stump sometimes. Where the beanstalk had been. He'd think about the giant's wife, who hid him in her oven and risked everything for a stranger. He never got to thank her.
Some debts you just carry.
Goodnight.