As intended, that seemed to give Oriane the courage to venture a short, tentative question in English on her own. Wendy did not correct her, but answered her question. And so it went, mostly about the cake, as Oriane followed directions with a first-timer’s care.
As soon as the cake was in the oven, Wendy called, “Sam, there’s a spoon here for licking!”
Oriane’s mouth worked. Wendy lip-readspoon for licking.
Sam sped in so fast his glasses bounced on his nose. When Wendy saw his ink-stained fingers, she mock-frowned. Sam ran off to wash his hands, and when he returned, his batter-covered spoon was waiting. As soon as he’d licked every molecule of sugary goodness, he was off to his drawing again, and Wendy turned to the kitchen mess, thinking that her son had better work habits on his creative projects than she did, of late.
By the time the cake was cooling, the mixing dishes in the dishwasher, and the prep table scrubbed down, she gained a distinct impression that Oriane knew more English than she thought she did. They had reached a tentative understanding, Wendy hoped, by the time the stir fry supper was ready, Oriane might be willing to speak a little more English.
Sam emerged from his room, and Alejo from outside, as if drawn by the magnet of delicious smells. Alejo’s smile as soon as he saw her, and the appreciation in his dark eyes, never failed to ignite a bloom of warmth in her chest. She scolded herself inwardly not to expect this exhilaration to last, but she meant to enjoy it while she had it.
As they gathered around the table, Alejo spoke rapidly to Oriane in Spanish, and then said to both kids, “I believe the other guests who live here will return tomorrow. They don’t know about shifters. So tonight is our last night to talk about such things in the open. After tomorrow, it’s best to keep shifter matters down at the beach, okay?”
Sam nodded solemnly, and Oriane said, “I understand, me.”
“Excellent! So, any questions?”
They talked about wind currents and stealthing—sometimes Spanish, other times English—until the meal was done and it was time to serve the cake. Wendy found herself listening more than talking. How she relished this, right here. It was her oldest dream, come true, sitting around the table with her family, everyone enjoying good food and talking happily.
After dinner, Oriane and Sam looked over Sam’s collection of anime. It turned out that Oriane was a fervent anime fan—hence the blue hair—and though their tastes were different, they overlapped enough for them to find common favorites.
After they went off to their rooms, Sam to sleep, and Oriane’s thumb working busily at her phone, Wendy was alone with Alejo. He opened her arms to her, grinning. She ran to him, and hooked a leg around his waist as they kissed.
That was the true miracle, she thought much later. He liked making love to her with the light on, he said, because he adored not only every inch of her, but he relished the look on her face when she climaxed. Such a vast change from her marriage, especially after Sam was born, and her body had changed. Bill had insisted on keeping the light off when he wanted sex. And it was always when he wanted it. If she’d tried to initiate it, she was “clingy.” So unlike the early days of their marriage, when Bill had wanted it every night—but even then it was all about his own pleasure, and she had not known it could be any different. A lady was a lady even in the bedroom, Mom had urged her to remember.
Until now. Alejo always asked, “How does this feel?” and he not only listened to the answer, he seemed to love it when she took the initiative. Then afterward, instead of rolling off to drop immediately into slumber, he liked spooning and cuddling, and they’d talk, his soft, smooth voice rumbling through her.
“I liked seeing Oriane opening up a bit more at dinner,” he said. “I think you did that. Thank you!”
She smiled in the darkness. “All I did was give her a dose of my rusty, kindergarten-level French. It was clearly so terrible she was desperate to speak English in order to get me to stop.”
Alejo chuckled, his laughter vibrating through her. “I doubt it’s as bad as you think.”
“Oh, it is. But I think that hearing me make mistakes, in my awful accent, helped her to see that nothing was going to happen to her if she tripped over a word, or got sentence structure wrong. She was talking quite a bit to Sam when they went through all Miyazaki’s films, naming their favorites. Though I think there was more Spanish than English, but he was soaking it all in.”
“I noticed that. I did ask her about school, and she said she’s not ready. She probably needs a couple days to settle in.”
“Right. She’s only a kid, and this has got to be a big culture shock on top of the whole discovery that she’s a shifter.”
* * *
Over the next few days, things began to fall into a pattern. At first, Wendy found herself bracing lest everything fall apart. But Oriane seemed to have made an attitudinal turnaround, the way kids sometimes did, especially when they were permitted to discover their natural resilience.
While she was at work, Alejo used the time to carry forward his project on her house, reporting nightly on progress both with the building and with Oriane. He said she helped with some of the painting tasks, then she ran down to the beach to shift and practice flying. “I’ve been trying to get her to work on her English, but she always reverts to Spanish if she wants to say something in sentences with more than one or two words. I guess time will bring her around, if she gets used to hearing English.”
Wendy agreed, cuddling close, grateful that Alejo seemed to have adjusted to being a dad in a matter of days. Wendy secretly delighted in watching from afar as Oriane and Sam began to find their way to a relationship. The world was still so new for kids. They adjusted faster than adults often could, especially when they had things to do that they liked.
In the evenings, Oriane still chattered away in Spanish to Alejo, but Wendy saw that as a very good thing. Dad and daughter should be forming their own relationship. As an adopted child, she had always felt that the more family a kid had, the better. She was glad to see that they didn’t shut Sam out—if he asked what a word was, or even looked puzzled, Alejo readily translated, and repeated words slowly for Sam, so that he could add to his Spanish vocabulary. Oriane saw Alejo doing that, and she remembered to do the same.
Oriane was quieter with Wendy, but only because she was still self-conscious about her English. Once Wendy went into the kitchen, Oriane would invariably appear, like a raccoon-eyed blue ghost, until it hit Wendy that Oriane was fascinated by cookery.
A few questions elicited the information that Oriane and her mother moved a lot, mostly living in hotels, which included housekeeping, and they mostly ate out. They had to go where the jobs were. The nature of Roxane’s work was from contract to contract, never very long.
Oriane took an interest in everything, but she showed a special inclination for cooking, so Wendy not only taught her, but hunted up an app so that she could brush up on her half-forgotten French.
Godiva’s other guests had returned by Sunday night, of course, but they were both very quiet women, largely keeping to themselves, except when Eve wanted to watch sports on the big television in the living room. At first Oriane retired to her room with her phone, thumbs busy working away, but as that week progressed, Wendy discovered her over in Sam’s room, looking through his manga collection.
The children seemed to get along, which delighted Wendy. But the best of all was Alejo. He woke smiling when he saw her beside him in bed. Every nerve thrilled when their gazes met during the day. She didn’t really need that mate bond to feel his happiness—and at nights, he showed her just how much he adored her body. All of it. Just as it was.
