Authors: Melisse Aires
He dipped his head for a moment then
looked right into her eyes. “I am so sorry. Didn’t think… you just lost your
husband.”
There was a tinge of anguish in his
voice.
He’s remembering losing is wife
. “It is all right, really.”
“Maureen’s been gone five years.” He
looked away from her out into the night. “This was the first time…” his words
trailed away.
“The first time you were with another
woman?”
“Yes.”
She felt the need to be honest, at least
with something, to ease his sadness in some small way. “Hoggart and I…we were
not a love match. We married because it was advantageous to us. He needed help
on the Steading, I was tired of cooking in a restaurant... He drank heavily
these past months…I did not know that about him when we married. So things were
difficult. I do not mourn him like you mourned your wife.”
He was silent then nodded. He turned to
her with a slight smile and her breath caught, once again at the sheer male
presence of him. “You lost a whole tub of fruit.”
She waved back toward the vines. “I think
I will still get two more tubs like that from these vines. Unless the weather
changes abruptly.”
“Come, I will walk you to your house. In
case there are volves about this night.” He held her hand as they walked
through the yard to her back porch. At her door he brushed a feather kiss over
her cheek. “I will send the boys with my private call code. In case you need me
for any reason.”
She nodded, her throat suddenly tight.
He shimmered into a stallion and galloped
away.
~**~
Polly loaded her pie basket into the
flitter,
then helped the girls strap on their harnesses. Her Synths were dressed in new
clothes, one in a yellow dress with a blue striped pinafore, the other in a blue
dress with a yellow striped pinafore. Polly thought they looked so cute, almost
human except for their extra large purple eyes and shiny silken skin.
Polly had a new dress also, tan with
small persimmon flowers, fitted tight at the waist, with a fashionable back
flounce, and new black boots. She had arranged her hair into a fashionable
style, and wore a tiny straw bonnet, really more of an ornament, pinned to the
top of her head at a jaunty angle. Excitement clenched her stomach as she flew
to the Verdad Steading. She had never been there before and she was looking
forward to hearing fiddle music, meeting her neighbors… seeing Fallon.
She hadn’t seen him since The Night,
though he had sent neighborly messages. Knowing the texts could possibly be
read by others, Polly had answered the messages as one neighbor to another.
Nothing personal.
Which is good. I have no time for a hidden affair with a
neighbor man.
But as she neared the turn-off her heart speeded up . “Oh, I
have squirbles in my tummy,” she said, and laughed as both girls grinned and
rubbed their tummies.
“You girls stay with me, you hear? There will
be lots of people so it will be easy to get separated. We’ll stick together and
eat some yummy food.”
Ivy made a waving motion over cupped
palm. The sign for dance. Fern imitated her. Since they could not talk Polly had
purchased an entire signing education packet, along with a basic school course,
and a solar powered com to go with it. The girls had learned a passel of new
words every day. This winter, when there was far less work to do on the farm,
she would begin teaching them schoolwork.
Truth be known her own education had been
cut short. She was pretty sure the curriculum for older children was well above
her own knowledge. She also planned to learn to knit—she was going to be
accomplished! The Skalzi –she was sure it was the woman who had carried away the
tub of fruit—had left a huge basket of fine yarn at her back door a few days
after the encounter.
Fallon’s house was three stories. It was
made of the same metal and crystiglass as all the buildings in the area,
provided as part of the land package, but his house had a number of domes
placed on top of each other. The girls signed, “Big, Big!”
In a field beyond the house she saw a
number of long legged young horses galloping. Shimmer children at play, she
figured.
She parked her flitter and she and the
girls walked to the barn where ribbon streamers and flags lead the way. People
dressed in their best smiled and nodded as she made her way to the huge double
doors.
The interior was just as festive and full
of people. Yellow straw bales sat everywhere, many covered with casual woven
blankets for those ladies wearing delicate textiles. A grouping of large tables
was lined up on one side. “Come girls, let’s go add our pies to the food.”
Funny how she was able to find Fallon in
the crowd in just a glance.
She set out her pies on the large table
that had sweets.
“You can just store your basket under the
table, ma’am. That’s what we are all doing.” A thin woman with a small boy
said. “Are your Synths twins? They are so precious.”
“Yes, they are. A comfort to me since my
husband passed. We had no children.” She had coached herself with replies and
small talk, it being so long since she’d been around people.
Polly knew they should say hello to the
hosts of the party. “Let’s go say hello to the Verdad family and then we will
find a place where we can eat and watch the dancing.” The girls smiled and made
the sweeping dance symbol.
Polly took a meandering route to the area
where Fallon stood. She wanted to see him, yet she felt the wiggles in her stomach
turn sour. He was with his own kind.
The night with me was…a mistake. One
wild thing…
She clutched the girl's hands a little tighter.
He looked at her and her heart, already
racing, pounded. She could feel the flush on her skin as his eyes took her in,
and she was ridiculously glad she’d bought a new dress and had it fitted by the
local dressmaker.
“Mrs. Avila, Ivy and Fern. I’m so glad
you could come. You all look charming.” The little girls grinned and made the
dance sign.
“Oh, they are signing ‘dance,’” Polly
explained. “I bought a school curriculum with signing.”
“I’m sure that is opening a whole new world
to your girls. Let me introduce you to my aunts.” They followed him to a table
where two old ladies and several other women sat. “Aunt Zona, Aunt Shul, this
is our neighbor, Mrs. Avila.”
“Mrs. Avila, we so apologize for missing
the death of your husband. We were in the South attending to Shul’s daughter—she
had her first child last month,” Aunt Zona said.
“And so we did not hear of your
bereavement until we returned just a few days ago. But we have ordered an eternity
bush, very lacy, and beautiful. We have a two in our courtyard, in remembrance
of Fallon’s wife Maureen and my husband Just,” the other old woman said.
“Perhaps Fallon can take you out to see
them.”
“I would like that. I don’t think I’ve
ever seen one. They were not common in the city I lived in.”
“Let’s go now, before the dinner announcement,”
Fallon said. He led her out the far door of the barn, the Synths following them.
The sun was setting now and on the eastern horizon the large silver moon of
Jerashade was rising. Soon it would be followed by the smaller bronze moon, Mor.
They entered a courtyard through a high
gate. The courtyard as formed by several crystiglass buildings separated by
hallways.
“How many families live here?” To Polly’s
eyes it looked enormous.
“Only four families, but we have room for
more. Horse shimmers like room, we feel closed in very easily.” He took her to
a seating area in a green patch of lawn. Two lilac flowered bushes spread a sweet
aroma in the area. Both bushes had been formed into heart shapes when they were
small.
“How did they do that?” She asked, running
a hand over one heart shaped branch.
“Prune all but two branches, and then you
bend them and wire them together into the heart shape. After the first year the
branches harden into the shape.”
“I see.”
“When the plant arrives, I’ll bring it
over and help plant it. I can do the original pruning and shaping, also.”
“Thank you.”
A fluffy white cat strolled into the
seating area and the Synths turned to her, eyes glowing. “Can they pet the cat?”
“Sure.”
“Gently,” she
reminded them. The little girls sat in the grass by the cat and stroked her.
“I wanted to visit you many times this
past month,” Fallon said in a low voice, watching the children.
She flicked a glance at him. “I …I wanted
you to. And I didn’t want you to…It was a month of changes. Adjusting.”
“I understand. That’s why I stayed away.”
He turned away from her, looking at the bush. “Part of why I stayed away.
Shimmers—our clan—we have strict marriage laws. I am widowed, though my aunts
would like me to remarry. Among our people, the older women arrange marriages.
The boys who helped with your harvest, they’ll be married next spring, then off
to university in the fall.”
He shook his head slightly. “The young
women of the clan seem like children to me. So it has been easy to resist my
aunts’ plans.” He drew in a breath. “You, I find harder to resist.”
“Another marriage seems so complicated to
me. So many things that could go wrong.” Polly walked to the girls and squatted
down to pet the cat.
“Do not worry about your Steading. If you
run into difficulties as a woman alone, contact me. I can either come and help,
or send help.”
“I appreciate that.”
“If I come visit… I would want what we
had that night. But—”
“Your people do not accept affairs with
outsiders?”
“No. It would be a scandal.” H walked to
the girls with the cat and showed them how to use a fallen twig to play with
it. “See. Miss Trouble has claws, but she will chase your stick. Just keep your
hands way so you don’t get scratched.”
A scandal. Something she did not want.
Especially when she had attained so much… the Steading, an unremarkable standing
in this small community. Security, a future…Polly heard voices in the distance
and knew they were being observed. “Thank you for showing me the eternity bush,
Councilman.”
“I believe Miss Trouble here will have
kittens soon. Would your girls like one?”
“Oh, I think they would love one.”
“I’ll contact you so they can pick one
out.”
She’d see him two times in the near
future. When the bush arrived, and when the kittens arrived.
Neighbors.
That hurt. She’d wanted more.
The
expectations, I had too many expectations. It is better this way. The years
with Hoggart left me vulnerable to a kind word. A passionate touch.
“Fallon, almost time to start the meal,”
someone called across the courtyard.
“Coming.”
She turned to the girls. “Guess what?
Miss Trouble is going to be a mama and Councilman Verdad said we could have one
of her kittens. Would you like that?”
The little Synths eyes glowed with
inhuman light, but she knew it meant they felt strong emotion. “Come. We will
go eat some delicious food. And in a few weeks we will come look at the kittens
and pick one out.”
The girls skipped and wiggled, holding
her hands, back to the barn. Polly lost track of Fallon, who went to a small dais
to announce the meal. She found a table, with the friendly settler, Mary.
Fallon spoke to the crowd. “Thank you all
for coming to our third annual Two Moon Harvest Dinner. This year we have many
more of our community participating. Welcome to the Verdad Steading.”
He was so handsome standing there. A good
man, too. Kind to a neighbor he didn’t know at all…Polly felt a rush of heat
and had to blink away a sudden tear.
It had been an emotional month, she told
herself. Hoggart’s drunken rampage, his death, harvest. Sudden, unexpected sex
with a Horse Shimmer.
She helped the girl’s through the buffet
line.
“This food is so good.”
“I brought the nut and greens salad,”
Mary said. “This is my husband, Garrence. Did you come last year?”
“I brought persicheri pies. No, we were
late getting the harvest in last year and missed it. My husband passed away
this summer, but the Verdad boys helped me get the grain in.”
“I am so sorry for your loss. It must be hard
… and you are running the Steading alone?”
“Yes. I think we will be all right. I
will have to hire help, though. I think I can manage fall planting by myself, as
long as my equipment works correctly.”
Mary nodded. “Councilman Verdad can help
you find workers.”
“Yes. He and his family have been very
kind.”
The dancing started after the meal was
cleared up. Lively fiddle music played by a trio filled the barn with happy
music. Polly was so glad to see that everyone got up and danced. It was nothing
like the saloon dances she was employed at as a girl, with drunken men groping
her throughout the dance floor, paying her per dance, while she tried to get
them to buy another drink or appetizers to enhance her salary. Here, grandmothers
danced with children, teens danced in groups, romantic young couples danced
with only each other. Evon and Charl came by with a group of friends and twirled
Ivy and Fern round for a song.