The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 12

It speaks volumes about the values and mores of our society and culture that the term 'fathering a child' means "to provide the sperm that unites with an egg to produce an embryo, fetus, or child." Once that task is completed, a male has successfully checked the boxes of fatherhood.

(applause here)

Being a mother is a far more expansive job that covers every aspect from the care and feeding of a baby while it is growing in the womb to nurturing the organism from the time it is an infant until it becomes a father or mother or some other form of adult on its own. In this arrangement, the father gets off easy, as they say. The mother, not so much.

Lizzie's birth mother was named Indigo Finch, a socially unconventional boho name befitting the post-Woodstock counterculture era in which she grew up. Indigo was not cut from the cloth of traditional motherhood. Friends had assured Indigo that once her child was born, maternal instincts would kick in. They didn't and Indigo had no regrets.

As Maribeth Finch, Lizzie never knew her father and scarcely knew her mother who made it abundantly clear that she wasn't the nurturing matronly type. Indigo viewed Maribeth as an impediment to her ascension to the throne as the Queen of Hemp Laundry Detergent. Indigo Finch remained agnostic to the concept of committed relationships but her devotion to eco-friendly detergents never wavered. She'd spent three years of her life refining her hemp detergent recipe and process, making subtle changes to the production of what she was convinced would be her claim to fame and fortune. Had she schooled herself on the value of social media, Indigo Finch would have become a YouTube influencer of the highest magnitude with millions of followers. But since she couldn't afford a smartphone, she remained ignorant of the awesome power of the Internet.

There wasn't much money in hemp laundry detergent, so Indigo shopped at the local thrift stores and rummage sales for clothing, housewares, and items to occupy her child.

Books became Maribeth's companion, particularly 'Lizzie Builds a Treehouse,' a book that had been published in the 1960s and went straight to the cut-out bin. The story was abhorrent to 1960s moms keen to indoctrinate their daughters with more gender-appropriate tales, such as 'Connie's Kitchen,' and 'Laura's Laundry Day,' and 'Shirley's First High Heels.' But in Lizzie, Maribeth found a role model.

The concept of having her own private place, one that she designed and built herself with her own two hands was ferociously appealing to Maribeth. A place where she could go to be alone with her thoughts and her books, watching the humdrum world below from a distance. 

The book illustrations depicted Lizzie picking out her favorite tree, imagining the concept of a secluded getaway, sketching out a plan, and gathering up the materials necessary to construct the treehouse. All of this was done independently, without the assistance of another human being. Lizzie then sawed the lumber, nailed the boards in place, and finally, was seen relaxing, propped up on her pillow, reading her favorite books in the treehouse she had designed and constructed.

Maribeth read the book over and over again carefully turning the worn, yellowed pages, and soon had the story committed to memory.

Three years later, on her eighth birthday, Maribeth Finch would take the name Lizzie because she admired treehouse Lizzie who she insisted was so obviously happy. To most, this was puzzling because aside from the story's final illustration in which Lizzie was contentedly reading her book, none of the pictures depicted a little girl with a smile on her face. Instead, the character's face, often with her tongue sticking out lost in concentration, registered hard work and determination. Lizzie said she knew that the storybook Lizzie was happy in her work and happy about what she had accomplished. She didn't need to smile.