She’d had her placenta steamed, dehydrated, ground into a fine powder, and placed into pill capsules by a Native woman on the island who specialized in this. She’d been taking the pills daily since Freya was born and had enough left for a few more months. It was supposed to help with general rejuvenation of mind, body, and spirit, and Angeni was a wholehearted believer. She made a mental note to discuss this practice more often on the Mother Nurture account and in her book.
“You want me to do your makeup too?” Aurora asked.
Aurora looked excited by the prospect, like they were little girls again, having a sleepover.
“I’ve got it,” Angeni said, taking out the pouch of products she rarely used. She preferred to be barefaced, to keep any unnecessary contaminants away from her skin. All the makeup she owned was organic, of course, but still, the skin was so delicate, so porous. She didn’t understand how people were so flippant about how they treated the largest organ in their body.
She set her phone on the counter in front of her and patted her face with powder, still watching comments come in.
Most of the comments were just heart emojis of different varieties and colors, with a few comments like these:
Needed this. We had just a rough night last night over here and this helps me remember how lucky I am
Thank you for always keeping things in perspective for us tired mamas. We love you
Itisa privilege. All of it. How often we forget this
“So is today’s podcast mostly about the book?” Aurora asked with her usual zeal.
“Yes, I think so,” Angeni said.
Angeni felt a couple of strands of hair break as Aurora yanked them into the submission of the French braids she was creating on either side of Angeni’s head.
“So exciting,” Aurora said. “I don’t know if I say it enough, Ang, but I’m so proud of you. I always knew you would be something.”
“Aww, thank you.”
The previous day, Angeni had had a call with her book editor, Trish, about her “vision” for the book. Angeni had shared various topics she planned to incorporate and tried to hide the doubts she was starting to have about her ability to put together an entire book. She was confident in her skills as a short-form writer—Instagram posts, for example. She knew she was great at hosting webinars and creating workbooks full of prompts to shepherd people through their own inner landscapes. But writing a book was something else entirely. It required big-picture thinking and organization that Angeni hadn’t tapped into before. But she was trying to give herself grace. She’d only just begun. She would find her rhythm. She had to trust Spirit to guide her.
What made her especially nervous was her editor’s suggestion that the book include more personal content: “I want to make sure the book includes a great deal aboutYou—your upbringing, your life, the story behind Angeni Luna. Everything else is content people can find on your social media already. It’s great that it will be gathered in a central location for the book, but I want to offer something more too. I want you to go deeper.”
To this, Angeni had said, “Yes, of course,” but the truth was that she was hesitant to go deeper, to share more of her past. It was a past that few knew. Aurora knew more than anyone because she had been there. Erik knew what Angeni had recounted to him, which wasn’t everything. Matt and Jer knew bits and pieces. She would have to figure out how to share enough to seem vulnerable and real while concealing the problematic details.
Aurora slid a couple of bobby pins into Angeni’s hair while Angeni used her finger to spread gloss across her lips. Erik appeared in thedoorway and rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. His eyes grew large at the sight of Angeni.
“Wow. You look gorgeous, babe,” he said.
“Doesn’t she?” Aurora gushed.
“Ror, can you ask Jer to make sure the recording equipment is ready?” Angeni asked.
Once Aurora left, Erik came up behind Angeni, one hand on each side of her neck, his fingers massaging into muscles she didn’t even realize were tense.
“You okay?” he asked.
He knew her so well.
“Just feeling a little anxious,” she said.
“About the podcast?”
He bent down enough to give her a kiss on the cheek, then continued rubbing her shoulders.
“The podcast. The book. Us.”
Just the night before, they’d had another discussion about her disinterest in sex. He had suggested that maybe they just needed to go through the motions of it to start, that maybe she would enjoy it once they got going. She had felt that as pressure, and told him so, and he had said, “Maybe it is pressure. I miss you, Ang.” And yet she still couldn’t give him her body. She felt stubbornly possessive of it, her heels dug in.
“Babe, I think you’re doing that thing where you’re nervous about one thing—probably this podcast—and then you decide to contemplate every other thing in your life.”
