This all relates back to Angeni Luna. Because sometime in the middle of a night Gwen can’t pinpoint now, she went down an Instagram rabbithole, looking for things to make her feel like she could redeem herself as a mother, and discovered that Angeni Luna was the woman behind both the Conscious Couples account and the Mother Nurture account. There was a smattering of photos from her personal life intermixed with the regular posts on each account. Those personal-life photos were like a behind-the-scenes view of the wisdom that had guided Gwen in her relationship with Jeff, and now her relationship with June. Angeni Luna’s husband was Erik, and he was ridiculously handsome and seemingly tender and ideal in every way. They had a daughter, born just a few months before June. Her name was Freya Odina, “paying homage to her father’s Norse roots and the Indigenous cultures that are the bedrock of this country,” according to the birth announcement post. In the comments, people revealed that they had googled the name origins—Freya was the Norse goddess of fertility, love, and beauty; Odina was an Algonquian name meaning “mountain,” which the googlers/commenters said was perfect because Indigenous people see mountains as connective points between earthly life and the divine.
Gwen didn’t care much about Angeni Luna’s baby’s name, though it did make Gwen feel silly for the name she’d chosen for her baby. June, born in May. She hadn’t even given June a middle name. She was still so shell shocked and doped up on pain medication when they brought the birth certificate. She’d burst into tears of indecision about the middle name, unsure which to choose from the list they’d made—Eloise, Amelia, Lenora. “I just don’t know, I just don’t know,” she’d cried. Jeff said, “We can always choose one later, hon.”
There were about a dozen photos of Angeni Luna’s baby, this tiny Norse goddess existing between earthly life and the divine. In most of the photos, she was suckling at her mother’s teats, which were round and full and glorious, with no visible wounds, no evidence of her daughter’s hatred of her. The latch looked so perfect. It was like Angeni Luna angled the photos so every mother could see that latch.
Gwen could not get enough.
Angeni Luna became her inspiration.
Angeni Luna became her North Star.
Angeni Luna became her nightmare.
Chapter 2
Angeni Luna
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to becoming a mother.
While she was busily entering the requisite hashtags in the comments section—#motherhoodjourney #motherhood #consciousmotherhood #motherisaverb #connectedparenting—Angeni watched people’s comments roll in.
Such true words, yet again. You are a beautiful soul
OMG. This. Who was I even before having my child? I don’t even know
It is the most wonderful journey, isn’t it?
I can’t believe I ever doubted having children. It has changed me in the best ways
She had long ago stopped “liking” each of the replies. She couldn’t keep up, and she didn’t want people to wonder why she “liked” someoneelse’s comment and not theirs. Each post got thousands of replies. People had to understand that she simply could not engage with each one. She had a baby to care for, dinners to make, a house to tend to, new posts to write.
Occasionally, though, she had to respond.
You seem to think that a woman’s life is not complete if she doesn’t have a child. It’s kind of #tradwife and
These were the kinds of comments that just had to be dealt with.
I do not believe every woman needs to become a mother, but I do believe in the sacred beauty of motherhood. It is a true gift. I have grown in ways I never could have before. I will continue to speak about this sacred beauty because there is too much in our cultural narrative about the difficulties of motherhood. I am sharing my view of its wonders.
The person, this @betty-bo-betty, wrote back immediately.
Easy for you to be detached from the difficulties. You live in a fucking commune with people who tend to your family and fawn over you like you’re the messiah
She swiped left on that comment, then tapped the little red trash can icon. Delete.
Then she promptly blocked @betty-bo-betty. Buh-bye. The world did not need exposure to this kind of vitriol.
For the record, shedidthink a woman’s life wasn’t complete if she didn’t have a child. That was why the womb was there—to harbor alife. Not utilizing it was like refusing to ever put weight on your right foot. She couldn’t say that, though, not outright. There were all these feminist types, these @betty-bo-bettys, who spammed her with hate when she tiptoed near suggesting that motherhood was imperative. But it was. It was, quite literally, the crux of humanity.
Also for the record: Shewasa feminist, iffeministmeant being pro-female. That was her whole point—a woman’s body was incredible. It could create. It could give so much. Every woman deserved to see the full potential of her body and soul.
All these Gloria Steinem enthusiasts had steered things so wrong.
Erik walked into the kitchen, shirtless and sweaty from chopping wood in the backyard—eleven acres of misty forest land they’d purchased with the profits from their first years of offering their Conscious Couples Communicating (CCC) webinars. The webinars had been lucrative beyond Angeni’s wildest dreams. So many people were in need of guidance on how to create real, meaningful connection within themselves and with their partners. Angeni and Erik served as an example of that connection. They had done so much work together, exploring their pasts, their traumas, their attachment styles, their relational needs. She was proud of their marriage, proud that they had spent years building the foundation of their togetherness before calling Freya into her womb. People said her life seemed idyllic and, well, it was.
“I think we’ve got enough wood for the year at this point,” Erik said.
In their life before Freya, a life that felt light-years away, in another galaxy, Angeni would have been aroused by this sight of her handsome man, aroused even by his body odor. Now, though, her eyes were trained on Freya, looking for slight shifts in facial expressions that would suggest she had gas—Angeni had eaten broccoli the night before, and she knew that cruciferous vegetables had compounds that would make their way to her breast milk and, perhaps, cause her baby to havesome gastrointestinal distress. Her current nose found Erik’s smell off putting, but her daughter’s poops mildly sweet and pleasant.
