But I shook my head, not completely sure how that title worked.
"A close relative?" she tried next.
"We didn't do that either," I reminded her. "Children must be in the children's halls by the time we're ten. Most go before they're six. The only thing I knew about my relatives were which men I couldn't marry because we were too closely related."
She groaned. "Right. Well, we treat family as something important. The same way you do Ayla, I think. An aunt would be a friend of their family who they can trust with the child. Maybe watching him for a bit when they need a break, or maybe celebrating his accomplishments at school. That sort of thing."
"Like how Naomi treats you as her child too?"
"Just like that," Lessa agreed. "And you don't have to decide soon. They know it might be years before you're ready, but they both want you to know they'd be happy to include you if you want. But only if you want."
I bit my lips together, thinking about it. Trying to imagine being around the child was hard, but always for the same reason. Every time I thought of him getting older, my mind put Gideon's face on him. The same brilliant boy who'd been so loud in our sermons. The same teenage boy who'd smiled at me so brazenly. The same man who'd hit me without any remorse.
"What do his eyes look like?" I asked softly.
"Blue," she said.
"But like mine? Or Ayla's? Do they have flecks in them of grey, or maybe green? Lessa, there's a lot of kinds of blue, and I want to know if he has Gideon's eyes!"
"They're baby blue," she told me. "The sort of strange blue infants get that makes me think they won't change to brown or green. They're blue, Meri, and the color they are now isn't going to be the same as when he's a toddler."
"But what if he looks like Gideon?" I asked.
Her other hand moved to slide across the top of the one of mine she held. "Why? What are you thinking, Meri? I know this is tied to something else, but you're not giving me enough to help you."
For a moment, I let myself enjoy the way her touch made me able to relax. Then, "It's not his fault Gideon was his father, and I know that. I also know that every time I saw Gideon, I flinched. I was scared. I'd learned that being too close to him was bad, and I'd brace for the worst. What if I flinched and hurt him? What if he scared me and I dropped him? It's not his fault!"
"Ah..." She kept rubbing. "So when you're ready to see him, you can do it with someone else holding him, and if you feel like that, we'll leave. How's that? Then you'll know."
"But not yet," I said.
"Then not yet," she agreed. "I was going to ask if you were sure you didn't want to try raising him, but I think that's pretty obvious."
"No, I'm happy they are." For a moment, I just watched her tan fingers sliding over my pale ones. "Lessa?"
"Hm?"
"It's not only that he may look like Gideon, you know. It's that I don't want to be his mother. I thought I'd married the man of my dreams, and then it all went wrong. Ayla came up here and got everything she dreamed of, but I didn't."
She broke in to ask, "What do you dream of?"
"Well, I used to dream of finding someone to love me, of being able to make him happy, and being the best wife in the entire compound, but that's stupid."
"It's really not."
Those words made my head snap up. "What?"
"There's nothing stupid about wanting to be loved," she explained. "Shit, Meri, I do that all the time. I've had a ton of lovers because I liked how it felt, and I knew they'd all disappoint me. So, I loved them long enough to enjoy it, and moved on when I didn't."
"I don't think I could do that."
"Why?"
The question made me chuckle at her. "Because my Vestrian isn't that good! I also want to do more than just be a wife."
"Like?"
"Like sew!" I said. "And Ayla mentioned something about learning about your medicine. I think I'd like that too, but only to help. I want to sew more. But that's the thing! I'm not a mother now. I have the time, and the freedom, and the chance to actually think about it! I won't have a daydream cut off because he's hungry again. I won't spend all my time changing his diapers. Ifinallyget to have a real second chance. I just don't know what happens now."
