“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“We’re good, thanks.”
“Okay then.”
He turned, took a few steps, then turned back.
“Thanks for the chat.”
In Sasha’s mind, it hadn’t been much of a chat, but she told him, “You’re welcome.”
He disappeared down the hallway, and Sasha kept rocking, her breathing in rhythm with Freya’s, until she, too, fell asleep, the chair coming to a halt until daylight.
The very next night, he came to the doorway again and said, “Guess who can’t sleep again?” The night after that, it was “Me again.” After that, just “Hey.”
It was possible he had a sudden bout of persistent insomnia, but Sasha liked to think he was coming to enjoy their nightly hangouts. It was all innocent—he made tea, they chatted for a bit in the living room, he went back to bed. But he never mentioned it in the daylight hours. Angeni gave no indication that she knew about it. Maybe he had told her, and she didn’t want to give it any attention. That didn’t seem like her, though. Sasha could imagine how she would address it:Sitka, I wanted to thank you for keeping Erik company while he struggles with this sleeplessness.I am working on a curative tincture for him. Yes, Angeni would want Sasha to know that she knew. She would want Sasha to see her be very blasé about the whole thing, because Angeni Luna was above petty jealousies.
So it stood to reason that Erik hadn’t told Angeni. Given that they were such big proponents of open communication and honesty, there was a significant reason he wasn’t telling Angeni. He knew she wouldn’t approve, or would have concerns. Sasha liked that it was their secret, even if they hadn’t admitted to each other that it was their secret. She liked that they had this nightly rendezvous, even though there was no explicit collaboration or stated intention behind it. And if she was honest with herself, she liked Erik’s company. There was a stiffness to her interactions with Angeni and Aurora; she barely talked with Matt and Jer. Aside from Freya, Erik was the only real connection she’d felt on the land.
While Angeni and Erik were out by the firepit for their weird little date, Sasha was in the living area with Freya, letting her have tummy time on her floor mat while Sasha was on her phone. She had a new message notification for her Nurture Mother account.
Hello. I am Angeni Luna’s husband and we could not help but notice the similarities in appearance between your page and our @mother.nurture.official page. We ask respectfully that you consider adjusting your aesthetic. Thank you.
So this must be Erik’s account, the one he used to monitor Angeni’s social media life. It was a private account with the handle @forest_man_83. She typed out a quick response to him.
Hi, Angeni Luna’s husband. Respectfully, I will consider adjusting my aesthetic when your wifeconsiders the damage she does with her posts. Thank you.
She knew he wouldn’t respond immediately because he was in the middle of their “date.” She wondered if he would respond at all. He didn’t seem to directly engage with any of the commenters on Angeni’s posts. Nobody had ever responded to the first message Sasha had sent in the aftermath of Daphne’s death. It appeared it hadn’t even been read. With the new back-and-forth, Erik would probably block her from Angeni’s page, but Sasha had already decided that was fine. Angeni’s page was public. Sasha could continue to view it from her regular Instagram account and then create response posts accordingly.
As she bent down to tickle Freya’s belly, she heard the side door open, and Angeni marched inside, clearly upset. It was no more than twenty minutes into her “quality time” with Erik.
“I can take Freya,” Angeni said, making a beeline for her daughter and lifting her off the floor.
Freya started to cry. She didn’t want to be picked up. She was enjoying playing on the floor. But Angeni was not deterred. With Freya in her arms, she continued her angry march down the hallway and then closed the door to the family bedroom. It wasn’t quite a slam shut, but it was forceful and loud.
A few moments later, Erik walked in from outside, looking exhausted, like he’d aged ten years since dinner.
“Everything okay?” Sasha asked.
He opened the fridge, took out a can of sparkling water, cracked the tab, and guzzled it like a frat boy would a beer.
“I don’t know,” he said.
When she noticed him looking down the hallway, Sasha said, “She took Freya, and they went to the bedroom. She seemed ... upset.”
He came to sit on the couch, on the farthest cushion from Sasha. He let his head fall into his hands, and Sasha took the opportunity to hit the record button on her phone. The first night he’d come to visit her,she’d been too surprised and distracted to record their interaction, but she’d been recording all of them since, continuing her research-gathering mission. So far, he hadn’t said anything damning, but just the fact that he was having these meetups with Sasha would be of interest to the Angeni Luna followers who considered him the model partner. Sasha felt a tinge of guilt about the recordings, because she really did like talking to him. She told herself she could always decide not to use them. They were just nice to have, ready to be leveraged should the need arise.
“I don’t know what’s going on with her,” he said.
The words were barely audible, as he spoke them into his palms. He had never said anything like this before, never admitted to anything being wrong with Angeni. In their strange corner of the universe, Angeni Luna was the epitome of perfection.
When he lifted his head, he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed.
“Maybe it’s the book that’s getting to her,” he said, staring ahead, unblinking. He turned to Sasha. “Does she seem stressed about the book?”
“She did mention that she’s struggling with it,” Sasha said. “Yeah, that was the word she used—struggling.”
He sighed.
