“Forty-one. You?”
“Thirty-six. So yeah, I got pregnant early; I’d just turned eighteen. But that’s part of our purpose as women, right? I didn’t mind it at all. I love being a mommy more than anything. Well, I love being a wife, too.”
Whoisthis woman?
The toddler gives her legs another powerful kick, then lofts herself from the swing. She flies through the air before landing on all fours.
“Honey! Be careful!” Abigail glances over at Charleigh with a look of alarm, but it feels fake, like she wants to look flustered so that Charleigh won’t judge her, even though she’s not ruffled at all. Abigail, for instance, doesn’t rush over to the child.
The little girl claps the dirt off her knees, toddles over to a garden.
“And that’s baby Molly. She’s eighteen months old, definitely going on thirty,” Abigail hoots.
Molly walks up to a strawberry plant, starts twisting the garnet-colored fruit off the vine. Charleigh is amazed. The girl uses her dress—also obviously handmade—as a vessel in which to carry the fruit.
She waddles over. “Mama, hungryy! Hungryy!”
“Okay, my sweet girl!” Abigail gathers up the strawberries, rinses them off with the hose that’s attached to the rear of the apothecary. Steps inside, then returns with a cereal bowl and baby spoon. She pops a clean berry in her mouth, chews it, spits it inside the bowl. Repeats.
What in the hell?
“Here, baby.” Abigail spoons the chewed-up mixture into Molly’s mouth.
“All disease begins in the gut,” Abigail says solemnly to Charleigh, whose own gut churns with disgust. “I don’t want to just feed her rice cereal and all that other processed garbage off the shelves. I want to introduce her stomach to all the flora it needs. So this is my method.”
Then, to Charleigh’s horror, Abigail lowers the strap on her dress and pulls out a breast, which is plump.Capable. Molly climbs in her mother’s lap and begins suckling.
No one, and she meansno one, whom she knows breastfeeds. Especially in front of someone else. And the strawberries. Jesus H. Christ.
Repugnance overtakes Charleigh. Abigail flicks a glance her way, lifts an eyebrow as if to ask,Are you woman enough to handle all this?Charleigh’s positive that her expression betrays her repulsion, so she turns her head. She willnotgive this woman the satisfaction of acting bothered. It’s as if Abigail isdaringher to say something. But no way she’s taking the bait.
Her gaze falls on a clothesline, and instead of watching the toddler breastfeed, for God’s sake, she keeps her eyes trained on the cotton dresses and baby clothes that flutter in the breeze.
“You breastfeed your girl when she was a baby?” Abigail asks, taunting.
Great. How is she supposed to avoid this trap?
Of course she didn’t breastfeed Nellie. How ghastly. But maybe that’s to blame for how Nellie turned out.
Charleigh pretends, though, that she doesn’t hear Abigail, keeping her face stone-still, her eyes glued to the action on the clothesline. After an awkward beat, Abigail doubles down.
“It’s one of God’s many blessings that he bestows upon us as women. It’s one of the ways we can serve our families.”
At this, Charleigh twists back around. Confronts the woman head-on. A sly smile creeps across Abigail’s face.
Charleigh smiles back at her, but it’s a smile that says,Keep up this banter, and I’ll kill you.
Abigail stares down at her toddler, coos baby talk in her ear. Lifts her eyes back up to Charleigh, as if to say,This act is making me more powerful than you, no matter how much money you have.
Bile rises in the back of Charleigh’s throat, but her thoughts are cut in half by the noise of a truck rumbling through the field, approaching the house.
It’s a vintage red truck, a Chevy, Charleigh notices as it draws closer, with the letteringSwift’s Custom Furniturestenciled down the side, just as Monica described.
At the sound of the truck, Molly unlatches herself, hops up, and starts clapping. “Papa! Papa!”
Abigail leaves her breast exposed, cuts her eyes back to Charleigh.
It’s a beautiful breast, aperfectbreast, and Abigail knows it, evidently wants Charleigh to know it, too.
