Chapter 16 Sasha #2
The baby was undeniably beautiful, even without whatever Instagram filters Angeni used. It was her eyes—large and blue, accented by long, stark-black eyelashes. She stared with the intensity of a much older, wiser human.
“Ror, this is Sitka,” Angeni said when Aurora came into the room and handed the baby to Angeni.
“Hi,” Aurora said, giving a little wave.
“Aurora is my dear friend who lives with us here on the land,” Angeni said.
“How wonderful,” Sasha said, quickly chastising herself for using that word for the second time since arriving. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful—everything was just damn wonderful.
“We really believe in building community here,” Angeni said. Which was another thing that Angeni Luna would definitely say.
“I’m going to help the guys out back,” Aurora said before excusing herself.
Angeni invited Sasha to sit on the couch in the living room. She offered tea, and Sasha accepted.
“Do you mind holding her for a minute?” Angeni asked.
Sasha was surprised by the request, had not planned on holding Angeni Luna’s baby, but she found herself saying, “Sure.”
Angeni handed the baby to Sasha, and Sasha almost said, “Hi, Freya!” before remembering that she was not supposed to know her name.
“What’s her name?” Sasha asked.
“Freya,” Angeni said. She scooped loose-leaf tea from a small ceramic pot into a kettle of water on the stove, turned on the burner.
“What a beautiful name.”
“Thank you,” Angeni said, again putting her hand to her heart in that display of exaggerated gratitude.
Sasha was overcome by a rush of unexpected emotion with the baby in her arms. She’d never been a baby person, never felt any kind of emotion toward a baby before.
It had to be related to Daphne, to the nephew she’d never know.
Freya seemed so small, but she was already nearly four months old.
Theodore would have been so much smaller.
“Are you okay?” Angeni asked.
It was only at this question that Sasha realized her eyes were welling up with tears.
“Sorry, yes,” she said. Then, seizing the moment: “It’s something about holding your daughter. She seems truly special.”
Angeni looked at Freya with such love and said, “She really is.”
After the tea had steeped and Angeni had poured it through a strainer into their two cups, they went to the couch. She took Freya from Sasha then, and Sasha felt a pang of loss.
“So tell me about this jewelry. I love pieces that have a story,” Angeni said.
The story is that I got this from a cheap knockoff shop in the city and nothing you see here cost more than twelve dollars, Sasha thought to herself.
“Why don’t you look at the pieces and tell me which ones speak to you,” Sasha said, hoping she sounded like the type of woo-woo person that Angeni Luna would like, “and then I’ll tell you the stories.”
As Sasha wheeled the cart in front of Angeni, she thought about why she was really here, what she had to say.
The rage that had propelled her onto the ferry had fizzled in the presence of this small woman who seemed so ordinary, so unworthy of all the worship she received from women like Daphne.
Sasha thought of the recording underway on her phone, the opportunity before her.
Her resolve was shaky now, especially with the baby present.
It didn’t seem right to unleash on Angeni Luna in front of her child.
Sasha watched Angeni peruse the jewelry, fingering each item gently, as if in deference to its worth.
She clearly had no idea that the pieces were worth next to nothing.
Angeni Luna wasn’t wise. She was naive, clueless.
Maybe Sasha could post the audio recording of this interaction with the fake jewelry to embarrass Angeni.
Would that be enough damage done? She thought of the account she could create—@exposingAngeni or @therealAngeniLuna.
“I simply adore this one,” Angeni said, holding a ring between her thumb and index finger. It was a silver band with an oval-shaped stone perched atop it. “The simplicity of it is beautiful.”
“That one belonged to my grandmother,” Sasha said, a lie that came so quickly and easily that she surprised even herself. Angeni appeared deeply moved. Sasha couldn’t help but delight in her foolishness.
“Oh my goodness, are you sure you want to sell it?” she asked.
“You know, I’m not sure I want to sell it.”
Angeni extended her arm, offering the ring to Sasha, saying, “I totally understand.”
“No, I think I’d prefer to give it to you,” Sasha said. She was proud of herself for the orchestration of this moment. She had come to know enough of Angeni so far to predict that she would, again, put her hand to her heart.
“Really?” Angeni asked.
Were those tears coming to her eyes? Was she going to cry over the offering of this eight-dollar ring?
She was.
“I just feel like you should have it,” Sasha said with a shrug.
“I’m truly honored,” Angeni said.
“Let’s make sure it fits,” Sasha said. “I can always have it adjusted if need be.”
She had no idea how to go about having a ring adjusted and wasn’t sure she could follow through on such an offer, so she was grateful to see that it slipped onto Angeni Luna’s middle finger for a perfect fit.
“It’s like it was made for you,” Sasha said.
Angeni stared at the ring on her finger, tilting her head one way and then the other, considering.
“I love it,” she said.
She placed her hand in front of the baby’s face, showing it to her. “What do you think, Freya?”
Freya just stared with those eyes of hers, a small smile on her chubby face.
“She’s adorable,” Sasha said. She was glad to mean this, wasn’t sure how many lies she was capable of telling.
“Thank you,” Angeni said. “Do you want to hold her again?”
There was a type of triumph in holding this woman’s baby, her prized possession, especially after all Angeni had taken from Sasha.
Daphne, this woman is a fool, see?
“Sure, I’d love to hold her, if that’s okay with you.”
Angeni placed Freya in Sasha’s lap, the weight of the baby atop Sasha’s thighs.
Her skin was so soft. Was all baby skin this soft?
Had Theodore’s skin been this soft? Sasha felt her throat constrict as she thought about Theodore.
She must have seen the baby on that horrible day, but her mind had taken the memory from her.
She wished she’d been able to touch him.
Now would be an appropriate moment to shift the conversation to what Sasha really wanted to say.
I was supposed to be an aunt recently. My baby nephew died.
That’s actually the real reason I’m here .
. . Her palms started to sweat. Before she could muster up the courage to speak, Angeni said, “So what’s your sign? ”
“My sign?” Sasha asked.
“Your astrological sign.”
Sasha had never been a believer in astrology.
Seemed like a bunch of hocus-pocus to give people some semblance of control over their lives.
There was no science to it—how could there be?
She knew Angeni was very into astrology.
She often talked about planetary shifts and other bullshit that people seemed to eat up with the same gusto with which they ate up her views on conscious coupling and motherhood.
“I’m a Scorpio,” Sasha said, because of course she still knew her sign, even if she thought it was meaningless. She also knew that Scorpios were said to be obsessive, with a venomous sting when wronged. Maybe it wasn’t wholly inaccurate.
“I knew it,” Angeni said, looking smug.
“You did?” She was genuinely curious what nonsense would come out of Angeni’s mouth in explanation.
“You’re a water sign. Just like Freya. Freya’s a Pisces. Water signs have such an affinity for each other. I can tell you two just . . . connect.”
“Oh, well, it’s easy to connect with such a sweet baby,” Sasha said.
“Have you done your Human Design profile?” Angeni asked.
“My what?”
For the next half hour, Angeni helped Sasha determine her Human Design profile, which was 6–3, the same as Freya’s, according to Angeni.
Angeni read aloud something on her phone: “You are someone who spends her life in experimentation. You may feel restless, always searching for the right thing. You are responsible and wise. Your challenge is learning to balance the structure of what you’ve learned with the natural ebbs and flows of being human. ”
This all sounded extremely abstract to Sasha, but she said, “Oh wow, that tracks.”
“It’s incredible that you and Freya have the same profile. I feel like you two are meant to have met, that you were meant to have come here today.”
I was meant to come here today, Sasha thought to herself. I planned it, in fact.
“What are your plans now that you’re on the island?” Angeni asked her.
This was another chance for Sasha to reveal the truth of her visit. But again, she found herself unable to do it.
Freya started to fuss in Sasha’s lap, and Angeni reached both arms toward Sasha, asking for the baby.
Sasha handed the baby back and watched as Angeni unbuttoned her blouse, baring her immensely full breasts without hesitation and placing Freya on to feed.
All the while, she kept her eyes glued on Sasha.
“Do you plan to sell jewelry? The farmers market in town would be great for that,” Angeni said.
“Oh. Well. Maybe. I’m not really sure,” Sasha said.
My sister died because of you.
The words were right there and yet so far away.
“This may be kind of random,” Angeni said, “but I feel like you’d be a great addition to our community.”
Sasha was dumbstruck.
“What?” Sasha said.
“Our community. We have six of us here on the land right now. There’s me and my husband, Erik. You met Matt. And Aurora. Jer is out back. I’ll take you to meet him. And then there’s Freya, of course. I wasn’t really looking to grow the community just yet, but this feels strangely . . . right.”