“I’m glad I can help.”
Freya seemed to suddenly calm, and Erik marveled.
“You fixed her!”
Sasha couldn’t help but smile, overcome by a sense of accomplishment she’d only found in academics before.
“I think the gas bubble just passed,” she said.
Erik stood. “Well, seemed impressive to me.”
He walked toward the door and then turned, as if a thought had just occurred to him.
“Do you two want to join me in the living room? I was going to make some chamomile tea.”
Sasha looked at Freya, trying to gauge how quickly she could go back to sleep. Freya looked wide awake, though.
“I don’t want to disrupt the routine, of course,” Erik said, starting to turn again.
“It might help, actually. She likes the rocking chair out there.”
“Okay then.”
The blanket still wrapped around her like a cloak, Sasha picked up Freya and followed Erik to the living area. She sat with Freya in the rocking chair next to the fireplace while Erik went to the kitchen and turned on the kettle. They didn’t even own a microwave—probably thought of them as another danger of modern life.
Angeni had planted chamomile on the land, along with so many other things that she put into soups and sauces and salves and tinctures and whatever else. Angeni had explained the chamomile process to Sasha—planting the seeds, harvesting the flowers, drying them with a dehydrator. When they brewed tea, they simply placed the dried flowers directly in the cup and poured hot water on top. Sasha had to admit it made for an enjoyable cup of tea, but the time and effort involved seemed excessive. This was part of the lifestyle Angeni was selling her followers, and this was part of the lifestyle that annoyed Sasha. If women spent all their time tending to a garden (when they weren’t tending to their husbands and children, of course), they wouldn’t have anything more to give to the larger society. How many women in previous generations, when modern conveniences simply weren’t available, had set aside ambitions and interests because making a home was a full-time occupation? It didn’t have to be a full-time occupation anymore. There were work-arounds, efficiencies, technologies. Angeni seemed to want nothing to do with those.
Erik brought Sasha her cup of tea, and she set it on the little wooden stool next to the rocking chair. Freya was resting against her chest, her little mouth grazing Sasha’s neck. Erik sat on the couch across from her and crossed his legs in the yogi position he often assumed.
“You don’t usually have trouble sleeping, do you?” Sasha asked.
“Oh, I do,” he said. “I usually just stay in bed and hope for the best.”
“Counting sheep?”
“I haven’t resorted to that yet.”
“Angeni sleeps though, right?”
“Out like a light,” he said.
“That’s good.”
“Before you came along, though, she was up all night. I was starting to get a little worried. She said it’s like an angel brought you, and I kind of agree.”
Sasha rubbed Freya’s back with her hand, felt the baby’s lips move against her neck, searching for a nipple in her sleep.
“Can I ask what it’s like to see your partner go through that?”
It was a question Sasha wouldn’t have asked in the daylight. There was something about the night that gave her courage.
“The sleeplessness? I mean, it’s stressful. I didn’t know how she could continue mothering without sleeping.”
“I guess I meant the whole thing—seeing her become a mother, seeing her change like that.”
Sasha had been wondering what she’d been like before. Was it motherhood that had made Angeni so insufferable, or was she always that way?
Erik took in a deep breath and leaned back into the couch, pressing his palms to his thighs.
