"I promise we'll make him into a good man," Jeera said. "But Meri? We want you to be in his life. I don't want you to think you have to avoid him - "
"Or us," Brielle said.
Jeera smiled at her. "Or us. We know you're not ready yet, and that's fine. If you want to visit and don't think you're ready to see him? Mom can watch him for a bit. Trust me, she'd love it."
"But he's your baby," I said, looking between them.
"And all mothers deserve a break," Brielle told me. "AndNaomi loves children. She'd think it was a great treat."
"Meri, we know it can't be easy to see him. You were abused. Gideon hurt more than just your body. He broke your trust, probably wounded your idea of love, and so much more. Emotional and mental trauma are real things. It's okay to have them, and we will never resent you for healing the way you need to."
"Yeah?" I asked, trying to wrap my mind around everything she was saying.
Because that concept? It was huge. Thinking of the confusion in my head as a wound? That made it easier to understand. That was why I felt scared of living with Lessa and excited at the same time. It was why I got confused about Drozel's muscles or Lessa holding my hand.
Because pressing on a bruise hurt. Ignoring it made the pain go away, but that wasn't the same as healed. Most of all, it meant fixing it could be painful, but it would be better in the end, just like at the hospital.
"But if you ever want to be in his life," Brielle said, "even if that's in a day, a week, a month, a year, or a decade from now, you just have to let us know. Our plan is to tell him all about his brave mother and how she escaped from the compound. We want him to know you did so much for him."
"And," Jeera said, "we're going to make sure he knows women are his equal. If he wants to sew like you, or fight like me, or be a nurse like Brielle..."
"He'll be a doctor," Ayla said. "Meri should've been, and Brielle's in medicine."
So Jeera crooned to the baby in her arms, "So I will start saving all the money for medical school. You'll be a doctor if you want, little man, huh?"
I couldn't help but smile at them. The way she looked at that little boy? That was love. That was what I'd always dreamed of but had never experienced in my life. That one look was why he needed them, not me - and seeing it made me happier than I'd ever been before.
I'd made this work. I'd picked the right people to take care of him. It was okay for me to be confused about how I felt about this but still sure it was the right thing to do.
The best part, though, was that no one had tried to make me feel bad for it. I wasn't a failure because I wasn't ready to be amother. They didn't sneer at me or judge me for it. They made me feel like my decision was being respected.
Like I'd done something right.
And maybe that was a little thing to most people, but to me? It was everything. It felt like the first stitch in a laceration that had been gaping open for far too long. I couldn't even say Gideon had made it, because I'd had it longer than that.
My father had always told me I was wrong. I was stupid. I was "just" a girl, so what did I know? My mother had resented me being underfoot and in her way. I made too much work for her, she'd said. Mr. Cassidy had picked at every mistake we girls made, so Gideon hadn't needed to do much.
A smile. That had been all it had taken to make me hope, and then he'd crushed it, but he was evil. The Moles were evil. And while Ayla didn't realize it, she'd said something that wasfinallystarting to make sense to me.
I was free. Cerlik was free now too, and he'd never need to know anything else. Ayla had shown us all how to be free, and while I didn't know what to do with that yet, one thing was certain: I wasn't going to waste it.
Because this was what happiness felt like, and I wanted more.
Twenty-Three
Ayla
Two weeks after Meri's appointment, I lay in my bed, listening to the noises the house made as it settled. Staring up at the ceiling, I tried to quell this feeling inside me. So many good things had happened in that time, like Meri and Kanik both being deemed healthy again. But this one thing had me nervous all over again.
They hadn't come.
Again.
We'd prepared for another scheduled attack by the Moles. Rymar had been sure they wouldn't come back. Kanik had been worried they would. Zasen and I had still gone out last night, almost hoping they might.
Naturally, they hadn't - and it made me sick with worry.
For seven hours, we'd waited in the woods. From the early afternoon until midnight, we'd bided our time, listening, and yet we'd found nothing. Drozel thought we were wasting our time. They weren't coming back, he'd said. Tayle, the medic, had pointed out how they had to be eating something. All I'd been able to think about was Callah.
