Oof, I’m a little late with this! The semester started at CU Boulder and we had a major shift in the homeschooling situation in our household. But anyway, here it is! A little piece I wrote a few years back…

Some background:

This is a “what if” exercise, where I take a well-known story (in this case, Romeo and Juliet) and imagine what it would look like if things had gone differently. If you need a refresher on Romeo and Juliet, here are the relevant bits: after the star-crossed teens are married in secret, Romeo kills someone he shouldn’t (Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin) and is banished from Verona. Juliet’s parents, meanwhile, want her to marry the prince’s kinsman Paris. Juliet and Friar Lawrence come up with a plan: Juliet fakes her own death using a poison that causes a deep sleep, thereby freeing her from her family’s expectations. The Friar sends a letter to Romeo explaining that Juliet is not really dead, and that Romeo merely needs to sneak into the tomb where she has been laid to rest and rescue her when she wakes. However, before the letter reaches Romeo in Mantua, his servant Balthasar, ignorant of the plan, races to Romeo and breaks the news that Juliet is dead. Romeo rushes to Verona, purchasing a poison along the way, and, seeing Juliet’s “dead” body, kills himself. When she awakes and finds him dead, she kills herself in turn.

So the ending of the original play revolves around the fact that Romeo never received the Friar’s letter. In this “what if” story, I imagine what might have happened if Romeo had gotten the letter and everything had gone according to plan. For a little bit of ironic fun, one of the characters also does a what if exercise of their own…

The Happy Ending

It was very late when Romeo Montague came home, exhausted from a hard day’s work and staggering slightly from his visit to the bar afterwards. Torches hung along the alleyways, sputtering in the wind and twisting the cobblestone roads into whirlpools of light and shadow. He stood before his own modest front door for a moment, steeling himself, then rummaged for his key and turned it in the lock quietly, not wanting to wake the children.

            Juliet glanced up as he came in, a frown furrowing her face. The years had not been kind to her. Childbirth and motherhood had made her body ache. The rosiness of her youthful cheeks had given way to the redness of broken blood vessels, and her eyes, once bright as stars, had been dulled by years of hard work and dissatisfaction.  Once she had confirmed that the man stumbling into the house was indeed her husband, she returned to her sweeping with a sigh. As small as her household was, the labor involved in caring for it felt interminable. Without a maid or a nurse or a cook, she was busy from daybreak until midnight cleaning the house, raising the children, and making sure there was food on the table. Her exhaustion often made her feel like a puppet, going through the motions of her life without any will driving her. But tonight was different.

            “You’re late,” she said. “And drunk.”

            “And you’re surprised?”

            “Not really. I’m just wondering how drunk. There’s something important that we need to discuss.”

            “I don’t feel like having one of your ‘discussions’, thank you.” He was heading into the bedroom, already lifting his shirt up over his head.

            “Romeo,” she pleaded. “It’s about our daughter.”

            He stopped and turned to face her. Juliet noted the steadiness of his eyes. Perhaps he’s not too drunk, after all.

            “What about her?”

            “Come, sit,” she said, leaning her broom up against the wall and pulling one of the wooden chairs out from the table. 

            He obeyed. Juliet brought him a cup of water, and he gulped it down gratefully. 

            “So,” he asked, “what did Rosaline do now?”

            “Nothing,” Juliet replied. 

            “She hasn’t caused another scandal then?” He twisted the cup back and forth in his hands, as though it were one of his carpentry tools.

            “On the contrary, I believe we have found a way to stop the scandals once and for all.”

            Romeo sat up. “Really? And what would that be?”

            Juliet took a deep breath. “She received a marriage proposal from Bruno Ragonesi today.”

            “Ragonesi?” As she had expected, he was not pleased with the prospect. “The merchant?”

            Juliet nodded.

            Romeo’s voice was edged with anger. “He’s a liar and a cheat – a scoundrel!”

            “Rumors, my husband.”

            “He’s nearly fifty years old!”

            “And very wealthy. He is willing to forgive her lack of dowry and, in fact, is offering such a bride price for her that we could easily afford a new house.”

            Romeo rose from his chair explosively, one leg colliding with the table. His water cup toppled. “How dare you?!” he shouted, no longer caring whether children – or neighbors – overheard. “I work like a dog every day to make sure that our family has a house and food on the table and fabric for clothing and – ”

            “Yes,” Juliet interrupted, “and maybe if you didn’t spend so much money at the tavern, we could afford some help around here. Even the Patrezzis have a maid, Romeo!”

            Just then little Mercutio came out of the children’s room, his hair tousled and his eyes dazed with the rude awakening. “Mother?” he asked.

            She willed her body to relax, turning to her son with maternal ease. Behind her, Romeo had occupied himself with cleaning up the spilled water.

            “Everything’s all right, my dove,” she said, ushering the child back into his bed. “I’m sorry that we woke you. Go back to sleep.” She pulled his raggedy blanket over him and watched as his eyes closed and his features relaxed in sleep.

            How simple it is for babes, she thought wistfully.

Beside Mercutio, Rosaline’s dark eyes were watching her mother intently. Clearly she had been listening to every word that passed between her parents. Juliet’s heart twisted in her chest. She wanted to embrace her daughter, to tell her that she would never marry her off to such a grotesque old man, that she would let Rosaline marry for love as she herself had done. But she was no longer the impulsive Juliet who had disobeyed her parents’ wishes and faked her own death to be with the man she had loved so passionately. Once the passion had faded, all that was left was a house that was too small, a life that was too hard, and a constant, ineluctable yearning to see her parents again. Wistfully she thought of Paris, the man her mother and father had ordered her to marry. How adamant she had been that she would never accept him, how willing to throw away everything she knew so that she could be with her one “true love,” Romeo! Not for the first time, she wondered what would have happened if she had chosen Paris instead. They might have grown to love each other, as her mother had suggested. And she would be related to the Prince himself, wealthy enough to have as many servants running underfoot as she had rats now. Shielded from hard work, she would have retained her beauty. Her children would be admired by all, and her daughters would make excellent marriages.

            She pulled herself out of her reverie, the walls of her tiny house closing around her like a prison. Rosaline was still looking at her. No, glaring. Juliet said nothing to her daughter, walking back out of the children’s bedroom with resolve. She may hate me now, Juliet thought, but she will thank me later.

            Romeo stood hunched over the table, pouting gloomily. He looked up as his wife came in. “She will not marry that man.” His voice was soft but resolute.

            “And I say she will.” 

            “But she does not love him.”

            “Love has nothing to do with marriage,” said Juliet bitterly. 

            “How can you…” His eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “The things I sacrificed to be with you…”

            “And I didn’t sacrifice anything?” Juliet asked, trembling. “I would love for my parents to meet their grandchildren, Romeo. I would love to see my Nurse again. But those things won’t happen, because they think I’m dead. You and I were too young and stupid to really think about the consequences, so dead set on getting each other into bed that we didn’t see the absolute idiocy of it all. And now we have no family, no connections, no money…” she trailed off, and her voice lost its vehemence. “And we don’t even want to get each other into bed anymore.”

            Romeo was silent for a moment. Then he took a deep, shaking breath. “I’m sorry, Juliet.  I never meant to hurt you. I don’t know what I did to make you stop loving me, but I’ve always loved you.”

            Juliet laughed. Romeo stared at her as though she were some foreign creature.

            “I hear that you’ve loved the widow across the street, too,” she said spitefully, “and the girls in the brothel by the marketplace, the wife of the innkeeper, that scandalous actress…”

            “Well, what did you expect?” Romeo blurted. “Do you think I like coming home to you, with your constant whining?”

            “That might be a proper excuse, if you hadn’t been such a lecher before we even met!  Don’t think I don’t know where our daughter’s name came from!”

            “What are you talking about?” 

            “Your dear cousin Benvolio informed me just last month about your obsession with Rosaline all those years ago. He said you couldn’t stop mooning over her until you met me. And I guess once my charms wore off you went back to mooning over her, since you decided to name your own daughter after her.”

            “My dear cousin Benvolio?” Romeo spat back. “What exactly was he doing here without my knowledge?”

            Juliet scowled and turned away, fists and jaw clenched. Romeo waited, eyes narrowed, for her response. When it was clear that one was not forthcoming, he moved toward the front door again. “I’m going back out,” he said.

            “Where?” she hissed, trying to block the doorway.

            “As if you care,” he said bitterly.

            She released her hold on the doorway and let him walk out back into the darkness. She was tired of fighting, so tired…she swayed slightly and leaned back against the threshold. Something within her was welling up, a sentiment she had never dared to voice burning to be expressed. Before Romeo was completely out of earshot, she called to him. “Romeo.” He stopped and faced her, but his features were obscured by shadows.       

            “Sometimes I wish the friar’s letter had never reached you here in Mantua. That I would have awakened without you, come to my senses, and realized that what we had was too intense to last, too irrational to be eternal. And maybe you never would have returned for me, or, if you had, I would already have been married off to Paris. And once our childish passion faded, maybe we would have found real happiness elsewhere. Both of us.”

            His expression was inscrutable, but he did not argue. Then he was gone into the night, his footsteps echoing on the cobblestones. Juliet went back into the house, closing the wooden door behind her.