Chapter 18 Angeni Luna #3
They kept their intimacy a secret from most of the people in their lives who were invested in their well-being.
For Erik, that included his sponsor, Matt, and Jer.
Angeni told Aurora about Erik, because Angeni told Aurora everything, but she didn’t disclose the relationship to anyone else.
She told her community that she and Erik were building a friendship, something rooted in integrity and patience.
When a year had passed, Angeni and Erik announced to their onlookers that they were embarking on a romantic relationship.
Everyone praised the care they had taken with their evolution individually and as a couple.
In the privacy of each other’s arms, Angeni and Erik promised each other that their true origin story would never be known.
Sitka looked at Angeni expectantly, awaiting her response to the question of how she and Erik had met.
“We met at a retreat,” Angeni said.
This they had shared publicly, generating responses like “Aww” and “Of course you did.”
“Was it a love-at-first-sight type of thing?”
Sitka was still spoon-feeding Freya, coming close to finishing the entire jar of liver paté. Angeni noticed an increasingly familiar feeling of panic rising within her.
“It was something like that, yes,” she said.
Had it been love at first sight? Angeni didn’t know.
They’d had instant chemistry. They were both fire signs, intensely passionate.
The spark was undeniable. But was that love?
It was possible it was lust that had, miraculously, grown into love.
She did love Erik. She saw his flaws, his fears, his fantasies, and she loved him.
“You could include that in the book, right?” Sitka said.
There wouldn’t be much to write with all the details Angeni would want to exclude, but she said, “Yeah, maybe. Good idea.”
“Is it weird for you that all these strangers, like, idolize your relationship?” Sitka asked.
Angeni tried to laugh this off. “I don’t know if they idolize us.”
“Oh, they do,” Sitka said.
Her tone implied she found this idolization absurd. Angeni wasn’t sure if she was in agreement or offended.
“Well, if that’s true, that’s just because they don’t know everything about us,” she said.
“Exactly,” Sitka said.
Angeni had spent so much time taming her wild beast, tending to her rage so it didn’t control her. But in this moment, she wanted to slap Sitka.
“Is there something about us that you don’t approve of?” Angeni asked.
She was trying to keep calm, to not let on that the rage was building inside her.
Sitka looked at her like she was insane.
“What? No,” Sitka said. “You two are great.”
But was that a hint of sarcasm in her voice? It wasn’t clear, and the uncertainty was a special kind of torture.
“Maybe that’s enough food for her,” Angeni said.
She hated the sound the spoon was making against the little glass jar, the screeching as Sitka attempted to get every last bit of the paté into Freya’s mouth.
“Huh?” Sitka asked.
Was this an act for her, this playing-dumb thing? This who me thing?
“The food. I think that’s enough,” Angeni said.
Freya bounced in her seat, tapping her fingers in her “more” gesture. Sitka made a point of looking from the baby to Angeni and said, “Okay” with a nonchalant shrug that was aggressive in a way Angeni wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone else.
“Thanks,” Angeni said.
Sitka went to the sink, pulled a paper towel off the roll, and used it to clean Freya’s face.
“Is there something you want to say to me?” Angeni asked.
She felt her cheeks flush as the question hung in the air between them. Again, Sitka looked at her as if she was insane, as if whatever tension Angeni was feeling was in her body alone.
Sitka lifted Freya from her high chair and said, coolly, “You’re burning the chili.”
That afternoon was a particularly nonproductive one for Angeni.
She sat at her desk, turned on her computer, and then spent an hour just staring out the window.
She watched Sitka and Freya on the walking path, meandering with no destination in mind.
Every few feet, Sitka would stop and kneel with Freya in her arms, picking up something from the earth to show her.
When Angeni did this with Freya, she recited the names of the plants and flowers out loud, hoping to imprint them on her daughter—“This one’s called feverfew.
” Sitka didn’t know the names of plants and flowers.
She didn’t appear that knowledgeable about nature, in general.
But it was still nice that she was outside with Freya, exposing her to the sights and smells.
Angeni could not shake the feeling that it should have been her out there with her daughter.
Maybe her guilt was the root of her writer’s block.
Or maybe no mother was meant to be creative.
Nature knew how all-consuming such a thing could be.
Each baby’s survival depended on the mother being unable to focus on anything but mothering.
Wasn’t this what Angeni always told her followers?
Somehow, absorbing the lesson herself was alarmingly difficult.
“How’s it going?”
Erik peered into the writing room.
“I’m not feeling it today,” she told him.
He came to her, bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Tomorrow is another day,” he said.
But Angeni knew tomorrow was likely to be similar to today.
The book wasn’t due for months, but at which point would she have to give her agent and editor a heads-up that she was not on pace for completing it on time? Was it delusional to hold out hope for a sudden burst of inspiration that would snowball into a three-hundred-page manuscript?
“I’m looking forward to our little date,” Erik said.
She continued staring at the blank screen in front of her, the cursor blinking.
“Are you?” he asked her.
“What?”
“Looking forward to our date?”
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah.”
It sounded like a half-hearted response because it was. He sighed.
“We don’t have to force it,” he said.
But the defeat in his voice, the sad resignation, was exactly why she had to force it.
“I’m sorry, I’ve just been preoccupied. I am looking forward to it,” she said, making every effort to infuse her words with enthusiasm.
“Okay.”
He didn’t sound convinced. He kissed her on the cheek and told her he’d see her in a few hours.
For their Sunday dinner, Aurora made a giant pot of pasta and unthawed a batch of the marinara sauce they’d put in the freezer weeks ago.
Matt made focaccia bread, complete with sprigs of rosemary from the herb garden.
It was a feeling of family that Angeni had never experienced as a child.
She was doing it—healing the pain of the past with the present-day life she’d created with care.
As she lit a candle in the center of the kitchen island, she took in a deep breath, reminding herself that no matter how difficult the book project was, she had this beautiful life, this safe place to fall.
The kitchen island served as their giant family dining table.
Sitka sat on one side of Freya’s high chair, Angeni on the other.
Erik sat across from Angeni, making playful eyes at her throughout the dinner, telling everyone about his “hot date.” Their plan was to take a couple of mugs of tea out to the firepit and talk like they used to.
It seemed like another lifetime when it had been their daily routine to end each day with each other’s attention, luxuriating in each other’s company, just staring at the stars or enjoying meandering conversations about nothing and everything.
They would go inside at some point and have sex, the fireside conversation meant to be a type of foreplay.
Angeni was strangely nervous, as if this was a blind date with a stranger.
Aurora, Matt, and Jer insisted on doing the cleanup so Angeni and Erik could have as much time together as possible.
“I feel bad not helping,” Angeni said as they started to clear the table.
“Do not feel bad,” Aurora said. “Go! Enjoy each other!”
Angeni still wasn’t sure if Aurora could have been the one to call into the Wellest podcast and bring up the question about her “shocking past.” She kept looking for any micro-expressions on Aurora’s face that would suggest an underlying resentment or bitterness, but found none.
Erik had assured her that whoever had called in was just trying to rattle Angeni.
“Your past isn’t that bad, babe,” he’d said.
But of course there were parts he didn’t know.
“Thank you guys for being so supportive,” Angeni said.
Sitka was lifting Freya out of her high chair, unbuttoning the bib from around her neck.
“Maybe I should top her off,” Angeni said.
She’d just fed her before dinner. Freya would be fine for a few hours. But something in Angeni felt compelled to tend to her daughter before tending to her husband.
“If you want to,” Sitka said with a shrug.
“Babe,” Erik said. “Freya’s fine. Take my hand and let me escort you outside.”
He was right—Freya was fine. If Angeni hesitated any more, the real source of her apprehension would reveal itself. She wasn’t in the mood to look deeply into her husband’s eyes. That was the truth of it.
“Okay,” she said.
Erik grabbed her hand, pulled her gently toward the door.
“Thank you, Sitka, for watching our girl,” he said before leading Angeni outside.
It was a beautiful evening, the sky an indigo blue as the sun began its descent. It had rained briefly before dinner, but the clouds had already dispersed.
They walked on the dirt path Erik and the guys had made through the dense ground cover of ferns, all their leaves overlapping like they were sewn together in a giant green quilt.
Erik wrapped his arms around her. They were such good arms—thick and strong, the sleeves of his flannel shirt tight against his biceps.
Why did she feel nothing, not the slightest stirring, in her lower belly?
“You cold?” Erik asked.