“What are your plans now that you’re on the island?” Angeni asked her.
This was another chance for Sasha to reveal the truth of her visit. But again, she found herself unable to do it.
Freya started to fuss in Sasha’s lap, and Angeni reached both arms toward Sasha, asking for the baby. Sasha handed the baby back and watched as Angeni unbuttoned her blouse, baring her immensely full breasts without hesitation and placing Freya on to feed. All the while, she kept her eyes glued on Sasha.
“Do you plan to sell jewelry? The farmers market in town would be great for that,” Angeni said.
“Oh. Well. Maybe. I’m not really sure,” Sasha said.
My sister died because of you.
The words were right there and yet so far away.
“This may be kind of random,” Angeni said, “but I feel like you’d be a great addition to our community.”
Sasha was dumbstruck.
“What?” Sasha said.
“Our community. We have six of us here on the land right now. There’s me and my husband, Erik. You met Matt. And Aurora. Jer is out back. I’ll take you to meet him. And then there’s Freya, of course. I wasn’t really looking to grow the community just yet, but this feels strangely ...right.”
Sasha was speechless. She hadn’t even considered this possibility. Her mind raced with thoughts as she considered the proposal. Spending more time with Angeni Luna would allow her to dig up more dirt, amass more recordings. It would be research to prove her hypothesis that Angeni Luna was a fraud. She would confront Angeni about Daphne when the time was right, then present the world with the dark truth of this woman. She could even rationalize this as a side project related to her dissertation, a deep dive into the world of intensive mothering and how it was threatening feminism. She was in no rush to get back to Seattle. She’d just started summer break, could easily reschedule her tutoring clients for when she returned to the city. Professor Williams, her faculty adviser, had said herself that Sasha should “take some time.” This was one way of doing that. She only had enough clothes for the weekend, but that wasn’t a big deal; there were shops in town.
“I can tell you think I’m crazy,” Angeni said with a laugh.
Sasha could feel that her face was scrunched up. She did her best to relax it and gave Angeni a smile.
“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” she said. “It would be amazing to join your community.”
Angeni looked delighted. “Really? I don’t want to pressure you. I just have a good feeling about you.”
That, right there, was proof that Angeni’s self-proclaimed intuitive gifts were bullshit.
“I’m honored to be included,” Sasha said.
“Okay then. It’s settled. I can’t wait to tell everyone.”
Angeni stood from the couch. “Come,” she said. “Let me give you a tour.”
After meeting everyone and touring the property, Sasha had gone back to her Airbnb, gathered her belongings, and texted the host to say something unexpected came up—truly unexpected—and she would be leaving the property early. That was that. With very little effort, she had become part of Angeni Luna’s community.
In the weeks since her arrival, in true scorpion fashion, she’d been lying in wait. She was observing, gathering information, trying to understand this strange woman and the cultlike community that had led Daphne so astray. Some days, she found Angeni Luna insufferable. Some days, she felt sorry for her. This woman had nobody around her to challenge her belief systems. She had only her followers—on the land and online.
It was difficult for Sasha to continue her performance as the eager young woman who was happy to help Angeni Luna however she needed. She couldn’t help interjecting her true self at times, like speaking up about the Abraham Lincoln quote—such a great example of Angeni Luna’s idiocy. Sasha had captured that on audio recording. She’d calledinto that podcast with that question about Angeni’s past, which had upset Angeni so much that she’dlost consciousness. Sasha couldn’t say she’d expected that—she’d just been trying to force cracks in her facade. This woman was so attached to this idealistic version of her own self that she couldn’t bear to face the reality that she was human, that she’d once had meaningless sex and stupid relationships, that she needed help taking care of her child.
Oh, the child. Sasha’s love of Freya was a complicating factor that she never could have anticipated. The baby had none of her mother’s hubris. She was pure and beautiful. When Daphne had gotten pregnant, Sasha had known she’d care about her nephew, but she had been doubtful of her ability to feel the kind of love everyone talked about. Now that she knew Freya, a baby not even related to her, Sasha was certain she would have felt heart-exploding love for Theo.
Sasha had never done a single minute of babysitting in her life, but she took to it easily. She couldn’t help but relish the irony of Angeni Luna talking about the importance of constant connection with one’s offspring while handing off the baby to Sasha. Sasha kept a log of every babysitting hour, something she planned to share with the public eventually. Every so often, Angeni included a photo of Sasha with the baby on Instagram—Freya with her auntie Sitka—but Sasha suspected it was because Angeni wanted to showcase the token nonwhite person in the community. Angeni never, ever mentioned that Sasha was basically the nanny both day and night. Angeni made it seem like she was writing the book with Freya strapped to her chest. She posted several photos of that—Just me and my coauthor!The book was a laugh. Sasha could not imagine how Angeni would succeed in finishing it. Whenever she peeked at the computer screen, she saw only fragments of sentences, random notes, nothing of substance.
It didn’t take long to gather evidence of who Angeni Luna really was. Jay encouraged Sasha to come back, to leave the strange vortex in which she’d found herself. She was building up to delivering her big speech about Daphne, mentally planning for her departure. But thenAngeni offered to pay her, to formalize their nanny-like arrangement, and Sasha could feel her desperation. It was a desperation that piqued her curiosity even more. Angeni Luna seemed shaken lately. There was a general sense of foreboding. Whether Sasha was the cause of whatever was imminent, or simply a witness to it, she didn’t know. But she wanted to stay to find out.
When she told Jay she was going to stay a bit longer, he sent a facepalm emoji and wrote:
be safe, k? i can’t lose u to angeni lunatic too
Every night, sitting in bed in her room with baby Freya asleep next to her, Sasha whisper-talked to Daphne:I’m trying to understand, sis. How did you think she had all the answers?She wondered if Daphne could hear her, in whatever realm she now occupied. She waited for some response—the flickering of a light, a whoosh of wind against the window. There was nothing.
Sasha texted her mom every few days, bland exchanges of pleasantries. She didn’t tell her mother where she was, just said she was busy tutoring and working on her dissertation and trying to enjoy some summer downtime. Her mother had proved incapable of talking much about Daphne, saying it was too hard. Without Daphne to talk about, they were left with the weather, work.
