Chapter 19 Veda
nineteen
Veda
“And right in that corner over there? That’s Jacinta’s house.”
Anne goes around the township, pointing at every home and telling me who it belongs to. I nod and smile, overwhelmed by the amount of information she’s throwing at me.
In this beautiful little township, tucked inside the mountain range, every single one is polyamorous.
I don't mind people living the way they want to live, but it’s a lot of information and an awful lot of names.
I was nervous about meeting two sets of parents, and now I have to meet eight new people. At least.
“Anne!”
A woman runs to us, and while it’s Anne’s name she calls, her wide eyes are on me, and only me. I can’t stop feeling like she’s looking at me like I’m a zoo animal. It’s probably just an impression, right?
“I heard it. Is it true?”
My mouth dries, and my heart bumps fast, but I have no idea why. Whatever she’s talking about doesn’t have anything to do with me, so I force a small smile on my lips.
“Catarina, we can talk later. Now’s not the time.”
Catarina’s gaze tears from me and back to Anne. She reels back as if she had just been slapped. “You can’t keep this from us.”
“I’m not.”
Anne’s tone with Catarina is different, firm, and leaving no room for argument.
The moments tick by, and the silence is thick between them, but eventually Catarina nods and walks away.
She’s not happy, and I can’t help but follow her retreat until she meets a few women and they put their heads together, eyes on us.
My cheeks burn, and I feel extremely uncomfortable about the encounter, even if I don’t fully understand it. It doesn’t bother Anne. It rolls off her shoulder, and that easy smile comes to her lips again as she tugs me around.
“We have about fifty cabins, though they aren’t all used as homes. We have some for storage, so we don’t need to go to the city so often, and that big one over there? We use it as a town hall so everyone can talk about important business.”
I can’t help but notice more people are coming out of their homes, and every set of eyes is on me. Anne laces my arm with hers, not sparing anyone a glance, but my anxiety is at an all-time high.
“We had plans to stretch to the other side of the river.” She sighs. “That was before everything, of course.”
“Everything what?”
She shakes her head from the thought instead of replying and pats my hand. “Don’t worry about that.”
But I do. I worry about the glances, and I worry about the whispers following us around. The air is getting heavy, and I don’t understand what’s going on. My ignorance spikes the anxiety, and I wonder if they just hate outsiders. Should I leave?
“Are you hungry?” Anne asks out of the blue.
It takes me a minute to even understand what she’s asking. “Oh no, we had a good breakfast. And it’s just an hour trip.”
“Oh yes, I almost forgot how close it actually is. It feels miles and miles away sometimes. Everything on that side of the mountain feels like a different world.”
For the first time since we stepped out of the cabin, my attention is away from the citizens and back to Anne. “The boys don’t come back home often?”
“You know, the ranch takes a lot to manage. They have responsibilities out there, and I know it’s hard on Major to be back. I understand. But I have to say, I’m a little surprised that Derrick took to life out there.”
“What do you mean?” I snort. “He’s the perfect cowboy.”
A ranch without Derrick? No. He fits too well. They actually all do. It’s a peaceful piece of land, and the three cowboys make it even more beautiful.
“He was a city boy before this. Traveling around, got famous as a bronco rider. He always liked flashy stuff.” She sighs. “But then the accident happened. Things changed.”
My mind goes straight to Derrick’s scarred hand. I’m bursting with curiosity yet never felt right about asking him what happened. I shouldn’t ask his mother—it’s wrong—but her face is far away, and she’s not noticing my distress.
“I noticed that he holds his breath when I even look at it. As if I shouldn’t make eye contact or something.”
I don’t say I was bold enough to touch it one day. I ignored the soft hiss that escaped him and let my thumb explore its ridges. It’s part of him, so of course it’s beautiful.
“He had a fall, but he held on to the rope for far too long. Stubborn boy. His hand got mangled. It messed up badly, and he went through a lot of surgeries to reconstruct the tendons. I’m grateful that he’s here and healed. He’s not so thankful.”
I wince, trying to imagine how painful it was to go through it all while also burying a dream.
Words fail me as I try to make sense of this version of Derrick with the one I know.
He’s quiet with a smirk that melts me each time, but I can’t imagine him liking fame and the overwhelming attention that only fame can bring.
“It must be difficult for him.” The words are not good enough to express what is in my chest. The way my heart squeezes just thinking about the pain he went through.
“I thought I was never going to see my boy smile again. And you know what? Major came here and took his little brother. Told him he was done moping and brought him to the ranch.”
“Wow.”
Anne laughs at my reaction. “Major is not a gentle soul, God love him. He is all action. He saw his brother in need and came for him. He’s a good boy.”
Boy is not the word I’d use to describe someone with gray hair over his temples, but this is his mother. Of course, she thinks he's still a baby to her. The care of a mother doesn’t end because her baby is six foot six. It’s a tenderness that I’m never going to go through.
Anne leads me to the side of the mountain, to the small road that leads to more houses and a few trading shops. The walk is steep, and my lungs soon burn.
Since labor, I’ve been having shortness of breath.
I’m usually good at hiding it from Jesse while we go around the ranch at a snail’s pace, but the excitement of today is getting the best of me.
Anne leads me as she keeps talking, but I’m slow, gasping for air, my breasts feel particularly heavy as I drag myself all over the township, and I’m suddenly scared that I’m about to lactate all over again.
How long will my body punish me? This is how it feels. Punishment.
I wonder if it’d feel like a miracle if my daughter were here, if I’d feel grateful for producing milk for her. If any of this would make sense, but instead, I’m out of breath, with breasts hard with milk in a town where everyone keeps staring at me.
We walk in silence for a little longer until I have to stop, hands on my knees, tired of even pretending. I need a nap. Hopefully, if I’m inside a cabin, people will stop looking at me.
“I just need a minute.” I wave a hand at Anne.
She hums under her breath, and then she stills mine as she asks,“How long since you had the baby?”
The question takes me for a loop, and I straighten up my spine and look at the woman with a new set of eyes.
How? She watches me carefully. It wasn’t a question anyway.
She knows. I look down my shirt, expecting to see at least some breastmilk to explain her knowledge, but I’m blissfully dry.
I shake my head in confusion. How can someone who just met me twenty minutes ago tell?
“I’ve lived with them for weeks now, and they—”
“Men.” She rolls her eyes, and a soft smile comes to her lips. “I can scent your breast milk, and your perfume is especially sweet right now. That happened to me, too.”
I swear out loud, forgetting the good manners hammered into me since infancy. “Does everyone have a super nose around here?”
“No, not me.” She laughs. “But I’ve been around enough postpartum women to know the signs. I used to be a midwife.”
“Used to?”
Her smile is sad as she tilts her head to the side. “Not many babies are being born these days.”
My eyes fill with tears suddenly, surprising even me.
My body is at odds these days, emotions always getting the best of me.
I shouldn’t be so sad that babies aren’t being born here.
Babies are being born everywhere, though, now that she mentioned it, people around here are on the mature side. I haven’t seen anyone around my age.
My tears are a catalyst, and Anne springs into action. Her arms are on my back quickly, and she leads me to a bench right in front of one of the homes. I look around, not wanting to be found crying on someone’s porch, but Anne waves my worries away.
“This one is empty. I’m so sorry, Veda. I wouldn’t have brought you around like this if I had known. How many weeks postpartum?”
“Two.”
“Jesus on a cracker. If the boys don’t know, I’m going to assume—”
“I gave her up for adoption.”
The words taste like ash on my tongue, and the soft tears turn into sorrowful sobs.
Tears and tears come now that I’m not trying to hold back, and poor Anne has to sit beside me, rubbing my back.
She murmurs reaffirming things, soft words about a future without pain, but I know in my gut this will never end. Not when I gave up Mirasol.
“Grandpa told me I wasn’t going to be a good mother. I never had one, you know? A mother,” I tell this stranger.
“Oh, sweetie.” Something is so tender about her tone that I lift my eyes to hers, trying to soak in all the tenderness she’s giving away. “I understand. But mother to mother?”
The title makes my heart sour, and my whole soul latches onto it. I want to be a mother so bad, more tears fall, and I just nod, waiting for her next words.
“You don’t need a good example at home to be a good mother. All you have to do is love her. And from where I’m standing, it looks like you do.”
More tears surface, and my shoulders shake as I cry. Anne let me have my moment, only occasionally telling me it’s all going to be okay. I don’t challenge the notion. Instead, I hold that hope in my heart, even if I know I’ll only be okay if I get my daughter back.
“I’m going to have to insist that you stay a little longer.”
“Someone needs to take care of the chickens.” I sniffle.
Anne smiles. “So maybe we can make sure the boys know how to take care of you. Was it a section or natural?”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “Natural.”
“So you’re probably healed, but I’d like to check you out. You need good food and care, Veda. You shouldn’t be helping with the ranch.”
“All I do is feed the animals,” I lie. For some stupid reason, I don’t want her to know her son made me shovel shit.
“Still. They should be helping you heal.”
I shake my head. “It’s not their fault. I never told them.”
She nods, thankfully not asking why I would prefer to feed animals in this state than tell the truth. Maybe my tears are enough of an explanation for her, but I’m glad she doesn’t go into it.
“Do you have a super sense of smell because you’re a midwife?” I ask dumbly. “I never heard of that.”
I obviously don’t believe this, but she’s the first person who could tell what I was going through. The method she has is foolproof, whatever it is.
“No. It’s not exactly that.”
“You said something about my scent. Jesse told me about it. He said he can smell me and…” My cheeks burn, and I trail off.
Anne chuckles. “He said that? And did he care to explain anything else?”
“No.”
He kissed me, or I kissed him. There was kissing, and I’m still dizzy after that, but I don’t say anything.
Anne looks around in thought, nodding to whatever thoughts she keeps locked in her head.
I’m tired of looking at everything like it’s a puzzle I don’t have any pieces to put together.
I take Anne’s hand, calling her attention back to me.
“I’ve been through a lot in the past couple of weeks, and I’m too exhausted to figure it out by myself. Please be honest with me. What’s going on here?”
She squeezes my hand in hers. Maybe she can hear the plea in my voice because she actually tells me, though it makes no sense to me.
“Oh, honey. You’re an Omega.”