1: The Prince of the Playground
A simple playdate
led to make-believe weekly.
Then he moved away!
My mom set up my first date. She kinda had to—I was only five. Now, don’t get your T-shirts twisted. It was a playdate—but “date” is literally in the word, so this one counted.
We met at the playground. Ben resembled a prince from the storybooks my mom read aloud every night. His sandy blond hair and blue eyes drew me in. One look at him and I knew. He was my prince, and I was his princess.
The sky was blue. The playground sand was white. The salty air filled our nostrils.
Our bellies were full of Mom’s real butter cookies. As our mothers chatted, we took advantage of them being distracted. We climbed up the slide even though we were only supposed to go down!
It was scandalous. Well, G-rated, playground-style scandalous.
“Adelaide Ann Monroe, will you go on the swings with me?” Ben said with his eastern Virginia accent.
My heart swooned. “Yes, I will, my good Sir Benson Donovan Banks.”
In my mind, he rode up on a white horse. We flew into the castle of our dreams. In those days, every boy was a prince in my realm, and Daddy ruled over them with firm kindness.
On that sun-kissed morning, using our full names added to the imaginary romanticism. Fairytale feelings bubbled up from my heart and infused our playdate.
“Sir Benson? Follow me, Sir Benson Donovan Banks!” I rode off on my phantom horse, looking around to see if Ben was following.
Smack!
I ran into someone. We both fell back hard, landing in the sand. The other person was up first, offering a hand as I struggled to rise. My eyes lifted, and I gasped.
Black hair. Green eyes.
The Irish prince.
The boy looked like the star prince in my favorite fairy tale. He didn’t have the golden sword. I didn’t see the leprechaun nearby, but the resemblance muddled my young mind. “Ruairí?”
The boy squinted, and he reached his hand up to rub his chin. Before I could explain myself, a clump of sand pelted my arm.
“C’mon, Adelaide Ann Monroe, let’s play!” Ben screamed.
I looked his way, saying, “I’m coming!” I huffed and turned back to the Irish prince look-a-like, but he was gone, leaving only the lingering scent of the leprechaun soap my grandpa used. I shrugged and ran off toward my playdate prince.
Sir Benson Donovan Banks had joined my fairytale game until I told him he had to chase me for true love’s kiss—Ben switched the game up after that. He landed us in the desert, experiencing the worst sandstorm ever. We had to survive by climbing inside of a camel.
I can’t say I enjoyed all the sand he threw into my hair, but that playdate was a start. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. One built upon the shared love of imaginative play. I convinced myself that this was the beginning of my lifelong fairy tale.
How lucky was I to find my Prince Charming at the ripe old age of five?
Royally lucky.
I was a charmed princess.
Ben was a fortuitous prince with his noble steed—the tire swing.
My brother, Will, was the cursed villain. However, during our fairy tale games, his alter-ego, the evil Prince Wilhelm, came out to play.
But my older sister, Charlotte, refused to be the golden queen or a fairy godmother. I would beg and plead, but she was thirteen and uninterested. She sat at the edge of the playground with her nose buried in a book.
So, Mom took the role of fairy godmother. She knew about my fairytale dreams. She was going to make this happen.
In hindsight, I’m sure it had more to do with his mom being one of my mom’s best friends from their church group. That and they were the only two moms who homeschooled their kids.
But on that May morning, a few days after my fifth birthday, I was enjoying the best playdate I had ever had.
For over a year, Ben tolerated my fairytale games, and I tolerated his survival games on our weekly dates. Every Wednesday morning, we would meet at the park and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. We lived in Florida, where it only rains in the afternoons on Wednesdays.
That’s not true, but it’s how it felt growing up.
So, when my parents started mentioning Hurricane Wyatt, I didn’t pay attention. It was several months after my sixth birthday, and I had big plans.
The weathermen predicted the storm to hit the part of the panhandle where we lived as a Category 4. In those days, that meant nothing to me, but my parents knew better. This one would not be fun at all.
As native Floridians, we had grown accustomed to the hurricane drill. Get plenty of water. Stock up on food that doesn’t need refrigeration. Put up the shutters. Take in the patio furniture. Gather the candles and flashlights. Find the emergency kit and put it in the office, which was the only room without windows. And the most important thing: decide when to leave.
Thankfully, we lived inland a bit, so we were out of the evacuation zone, but Ben’s family was not so lucky. They lived in a low-lying area near the bay with homes built after Hurricane Elizabeth. No one knew how the neighborhood on the point would fare.
Ben and his parents came to our house to ride out the weather. I was ecstatic, envisioning fairytale games by candlelight as the storm raged on! Could there be anything better?
Ben said survival games. My brother Will agreed.
We made up our own blend of make-believe games as we all waited for Wyatt to blow through. Ones that stranded us on an island or ones that put us lost in the desert. Ben and Will always rescued the princess (me) in the end, but it wasn’t the same. My idea of make-believe had a lot less survival and a lot more romance.
I can’t blame the boys. They weren’t into fairy tales, and I didn’t exactly look like Cinderella in those days. My crown of frizzy brown hair and tanned complexion, dotted with freckles, didn’t scream Snow White. I was too petite to reach the window, so I could let down my hair. I still wore size 3T shorts at five years old. And those shorts were always loose. With my poo-brown owl eyes, I looked more like I belonged on the trail than in the tower.
That night, my mom read to us from our fairytale books as we all fell asleep in my dad’s office. She read my favorites, including the story my name came from. In it, a banshee trapped a princess in a cave and turned her into a rock. Her childhood friend, the Irish prince, and a leprechaun worked together to save her. The two kill the banshee and find the princess, taking her home. The prince and princess fall in love. They get married, uniting their kingdoms and bringing peace to the region.
Yet, that night, as my mom read the tale, she skipped some parts and didn’t do all the voices she typically did. I was about to protest when the worried looks on our parents’ faces kept the words locked inside. Despite the tension, we fell asleep in less than ten minutes.
In the middle of the night, I woke up to what sounded like a distant train. A sound that made no sense because there were no train tracks near us. I almost counted it as a dream, but the noise had woken Ben, Will, and Charlotte, too. We looked up to see our parents running toward us, screaming our names. They scooped us up. We all hid in the closet in Dad’s study, huddling in there until the train passed.
The train—a tornado—was one of the worst our town had ever seen. And it missed our house by mere feet.
We were lucky. All we lost were a few shingles off the clay roof and the shutters off the side of the house. Our next-door neighbors weren’t that lucky. They joined us in Dad’s study that night. We waited together as the other half of Hurricane Wyatt created a secondary path of destruction.
The next afternoon, the rain and wind let up, and we went outside. Nothing I had seen before—or after—looked like what greeted us with the sunshine. Hurricane Wyatt made a direct hit on our little town in the panhandle as a Category 5.
There was debris everywhere. The trees only had a few leaves left on them. The two houses to our left were gone. There was a similar path created through the neighborhood. The pool in our backyard contained wood, shingles, and our neighbor’s collection of Hummel statues.
The reality of Wyatt’s mark on our neighborhood produced tears in our eyes as we shook our heads in shock. After the wave of emotions ran over us, we did what Floridians do after a hurricane. Everyone pitched in to help each other out.
My family, Ben’s family, and the neighbors helped to clear a path out. We checked on the residents who hadn’t emerged yet as we went. That evening, Ben’s family left to check on their house, but they returned within a few minutes. They never made it to their home—their neighborhood was still underwater.
Ben, Will, and I played underwater survival that night. We had no clue that reality was much, much worse than our make-believe. As an adult, I can look back and appreciate the gravity of that situation. But as a child, I wanted my fairytale games to go on, but as we played Ben’s parents were making plans that would end our adventures.
Over the next few days, the waters receded, and things opened up. We discovered the damage left behind.
The firm where Ben’s dad worked… destroyed.
The neighborhood on the point… washed away.
Their house… gone, along with everything the Banks owned. All they had were the clothes they brought and the car they had driven over.
Sure, insurance would cover the loss, but Ben’s mom was pregnant. She couldn’t fathom having the energy to rebuild in Florida. The firm his dad worked for said he could have his old job back, the one he had before they transferred to Florida. So, Ben’s parents moved back to Virginia.
When my mom mentioned Ben was leaving, I furrowed my brow and stared at her. Without batting an eye, I said, “He can’t leave. He’s my prince. I’m his princess. He can live with us.”
“What? Honey, he can’t stay with us. He has to go with his parents.” Mom gave me a sad smile.
I burst into angry tears. “Fairytale… Ben leave… never… magic wand… fix,” I squeaked out between sobs.
My mom wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight and waiting for the sobs to subside. Once I calmed down, she said, “Honey, this is real life. You can’t wave a magic wand to return everything as you want it. You gotta learn to be content where you’re at, to change what you can change, and let go of what you can’t.”
“But… fix it… Mom… please.” The whine in my voice even annoyed me.
“I can’t fix this, Adelaide. Ben and his family are leaving, and though we’ll miss them—”
“But… he would always let me… add a princess to anything we played. He’s my best friend… just like a prince should be. I won’t be happy unless he stays!” I crossed my arms and pouted my lips.
My mom sighed, softening her smile and reaching out to touch my arm. “Ben’s leaving doesn’t mean you’ll never be happy ever again. Happiness is an inside job, Adelaide. And you’ll find new best friends.”
But I didn’t want to accept her words.
I swatted at my tears, wiping them away and shouting, “I’m going to find a real fairy godmother! She’ll help me get the Prince of the Playground back!” I turned and stomped away, convinced that my fairy godmother would show up, wave her wand, and show that storm who was boss.
But she didn’t.
Instead, after I calmed down, my mom tried speaking to me about it again. “Adelaide, I know you will miss Ben. What if we found something that would help you remember him?”
I nodded.
“How about a book on survival? Ben liked survival games, didn’t he?”
“Ew, no. How about a stuffed animal? We could get a white horse or a dolphin.” I batted my eyes at her.
“Adelaide, there are currently so many stuffed animals on your bed that I can’t see the comforter! How about a charm bracelet? You can get a charm that reminds you of Ben now, and if you ever have another friend who leaves, we can add another charm. You can add one every time you want to remember someone.”
I liked that idea, not the part about more friends leaving—the part about using a charm on a bracelet to remember Sir Benson and our fairytale games.
We went to the store. Mom and I picked a simple bracelet with plenty of links. It dangled around my arm so I could grow into it. I selected a sandcastle charm to remind me of Ben because it mixed playground sand with fairy tales.
I didn’t wear my new bracelet daily, but I touched it every night before bed. The memory of Ben still hurt, but when my fingertips grazed the sandcastle, I smiled.