Angeni tried to laugh this off. “I don’t know if theyidolizeus.”
“Oh, they do,” Sitka said.
Her tone implied she found this idolization absurd. Angeni wasn’t sure if she was in agreement or offended.
“Well, if that’s true, that’s just because they don’t know everything about us,” she said.
“Exactly,” Sitka said.
Angeni had spent so much time taming her wild beast, tending to her rage so it didn’t control her. But in this moment, she wanted to slap Sitka.
“Is there something about us that you don’t approve of?” Angeni asked.
She was trying to keep calm, to not let on that the rage was building inside her.
Sitka looked at her like she was insane.
“What? No,” Sitka said. “You two are great.”
But was that a hint of sarcasm in her voice? It wasn’t clear, and the uncertainty was a special kind of torture.
“Maybe that’s enough food for her,” Angeni said.
She hated the sound the spoon was making against the little glass jar, the screeching as Sitka attempted to get every last bit of the pâté into Freya’s mouth.
“Huh?” Sitka asked.
Was this an act for her, this playing-dumb thing? Thiswho mething?
“The food. I think that’s enough,” Angeni said.
Freya bounced in her seat, tapping her fingers in her “more” gesture. Sitka made a point of looking from the baby to Angeni and said, “Okay” with a nonchalant shrug that was aggressive in a way Angeni wouldn’t be able to explain to anyone else.
“Thanks,” Angeni said.
Sitka went to the sink, pulled a paper towel off the roll, and used it to clean Freya’s face.
“Is there something you want to say to me?” Angeni asked.
She felt her cheeks flush as the question hung in the air between them. Again, Sitka looked at her as if she was insane, as if whatever tension Angeni was feeling was in her body alone.
Sitka lifted Freya from her high chair and said, coolly, “You’re burning the chili.”
That afternoon was a particularly nonproductive one for Angeni. She sat at her desk, turned on her computer, and then spent an hour just staring out the window. She watched Sitka and Freya on the walking path, meandering with no destination in mind. Every few feet, Sitka would stop and kneel with Freya in her arms, picking up something from the earth to show her. When Angeni did this with Freya, she recited the names of the plants and flowers out loud, hoping to imprint them on her daughter—“This one’s called feverfew.” Sitka didn’t know the names of plants and flowers. She didn’t appear that knowledgeable about nature, in general. But it was still nice that she was outside with Freya, exposing her to the sights and smells. Angeni could not shake the feeling that it should have been her out there with her daughter. Maybe her guilt was the root of her writer’s block. Or maybe no mother was meant to be creative. Nature knew how all-consuming such a thing could be. Each baby’s survival depended on the mother being unable to focus on anything but mothering. Wasn’t this what Angeni always told her followers? Somehow, absorbing the lesson herself was alarmingly difficult.
“How’s it going?”
Erik peered into the writing room.
“I’m not feeling it today,” she told him.
He came to her, bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Tomorrow is another day,” he said.
But Angeni knew tomorrow was likely to be similar to today.
The book wasn’t due for months, but at which point would she have to give her agent and editor a heads-up that she was not on pace for completing it on time? Was it delusional to hold out hope for a sudden burst of inspiration that would snowball into a three-hundred-page manuscript?
