40. Helena
Helena
Lovatch was growing daily. Lovatch was healthy. Lovatch was—as far as Helena could tell based on physical and behavioral cues—happy.
That was the most important thing, Helena kept reminding herself.
It wasn’t important that Helena was worrying herself sick, not knowing what the owl-bear’s growth curve should be or if she was hitting appropriate milestones.
It wasn’t important that Lovatch refused to sleep alone, so Helena had to deal with Lovatch’s sharp talons and a sharp beak intermittently poking her throughout the night, or Lovatch suddenly screaming for food in her ear out of nowhere.
It wasn’t important that Helena was getting two hours of sleep a night.
Sometimes Lovatch only screamed once at night. But Helena never knew when that earsplitting shriek would come, so even when she did sleep, she did so fitfully.
That wasn’t important.
And it wasn’t important that Helena was so worried about constantly feeding Lovatch (and wondering if she was feeding her too much or too little) that sometimes Helena forgot to feed herself.
And it really wasn’t important that she had spent five years harboring massive amounts of guilt, confusion, and hurt over the way her relationship ended with her childhood-best-friend-turned-lover, and that when he finally agreed to move forward with a clean slate, she wasn’t able to get near him or talk to him face-to-face.
No, that wasn’t important at all. It was totally, totally fine.
Helena felt herself panic every time she caught sight of Bertram.
When she took Lovatch into the kitchen, if Bertram so much as passed by, he was at risk of another cub-chick attack.
It got to the point where Helena’s heart raced the second she saw Bertram.
Which was fair, because the second Lovatch saw Bertram, she would immediately hiss and spit and try to wrestle out of Helena’s grip to shred him to pieces.
As such, Helena tried to keep Lovatch (and therefore herself) out of Bertram’s sight.
She and Bertram still texted, of course, and their texts were personable and friendly and that was all well and good.
But it was hard to have deep conversations over text when you were just starting to get to know someone again.
And it was even harder when you kept forgetting to answer texts because sometimes you went to pick up your phone and a baby monster started screaming in your ear and you forgot your own name, let alone how to spell words or what words were or why words supposedly mattered.
But none of that was important.
Pinfeathers started coming in on Lovatch’s head, wings, legs, and tail. The brand-new feathers, still sheathed in tunnels of keratin, made Lovatch look like something between an ambitious pincushion and a defective porcupine.
Histrionics? Helena thought when she was trying to recall the scientific name of the porcupine. She knew vaguely that that wasn’t quite right.
But it sure felt right.
Hystricidae, she remembered suddenly in the middle of the night, when Lovatch’s talons poked her side, and then the word promptly left her mind again, as most words did most days.
With the imprinting bond still strong, it became clear that any attempts to simulate a “wild” experience for Lovatch were futile.
So, Helena abandoned the nest they had built for Lovatch and resumed sleeping in her own bed, Lovatch along with her.
The bed was slightly more comfortable, but it hardly compensated for what a poor bedfellow Lovatch was.
Helena thought the feathers coming in might be uncomfortable, because Lovatch’s behavior was getting worse every day.
No, Helena caught herself. Not worse. There was no reason to ascribe a judgment value to the behavior of an innocent baby animal. Lovatch’s behavior was just becoming . . .
. . . less and less conducive to Helena maintaining a good quality of life.
Lovatch screamed all the time. Sometimes she wanted extra portions of food, and then extra-extra portions, which Helena gave and hoped desperately she wasn’t overfeeding.
Sometimes Lovatch screamed because she wanted to go outside the tent to eliminate her waste.
Sometimes Lovatch wanted to go outside, then back inside, then outside, then inside and eliminate her waste in Helena’s bed.
Sometimes Lovatch screamed and screamed and screamed and nothing Helena did seemed to satisfy whatever it was Lovatch demanded.
“I’m trying my best,” Helena sobbed when Lovatch moved into her second straight hour of shrieking and tearing Helena’s pillows apart. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m not your mama! I’m sorry I’m not an owl-bear! But I don’t know what you want from me! I don’t know how to help you!”
Helena cried so hard she started hiccupping. She cried so hard she thought she might throw up.
Lovatch walked gingerly over to Helena and curled up in her lap. Lovatch rolled over onto her back and stared up at Helena with her large, silver-ringed eyes.
Whether it was the inherent preciousness of a big-eyed baby bird-bear or the imprinting bond, Lovatch’s stare instantly stopped Helena’s crying.
Helena remembered why she was doing all of this—because she was, and always had been, a true leopardopterist. She cared about otherfolk.
She cared about owl-bears. She wanted to make the world a better place for them.
Besides, Lovatch was a perfect angel who had never done anything wrong in her entire life or caused any annoyance or irritation to anyone.
Which, Helena realized, was definitely the imprinting bond taking over her thoughts.
She resumed sobbing.