I don’t even have a woman I can call mom. Not really.
That woman died. Bled into the earth alongside her partner.
And I know when I walk through that door into that house I won’t be looking at my grandma. My grandma wasn’t human, either. She was a goddess. Is a goddess.Artemis.
Sabina once again pokes her head out the door, her cheeks rosy and flushed. “Grandma won’t let us start until you get your ass in the house.”
“Did she give you permission to curse, too?” I ask, just as I did then, snapping right back at Sabina whose cheeks flush red and she stomps away.
Shame flushes through me. I wasn’t ashamed then. But I am now. That’s hindsight, right? Looking back through moments in your life and feeling that shame, when then it was learning.
The mud room isn’t much but it leads to the kitchen and for a moment I breathe in the nostalgia.
Not just for the walk back through the decades and not the scents. But for the peace that settles over me. I may not have been kind to Sabina just now, but it’s all still there.
Love so fucking deep that for a moment I’m ashamed all over again, because I took that love and unceremoniously dumped it in a box and hid it inside of me, somewhere deep, somewhere no one can ever access it.
Even me.
Until now.
And that’s when I get it.
They never shut me out, I shut them out.
“Well, there you are.” Grandma walks up from the basement.
Only it’s not Grandma. It’s Artemis.
But Sabina is looking at her like she’s the same damn woman she’s always been.
I guess in a way she is.
Dreams are weird.
I’m not sure how to react. How to breathe. So I fall into my body, let myself exist on autopilot and roll through the motions.
Sabina clacks a bowl down and they start.
But all through it, I can’t stop staring at her.
Artemis.
Her face is both beautiful and handsome. Blended so perfectly that on her it looks like traditional beauty. And the little upturned nose. One I don’t have.
Steel-blue eyes we all inherited. Well, not me. Mine was glamour. They’re green now.
And her long hair. It shimmers red but looks almost blonde or brunette. A natural ginger.
And she’s strong. The way I always wanted to be. Even though I see her for who she is now. I always saw her that way and not a frail old woman.
“Are you going to keep staring at me?” she asks.
But that wasn’t in the conversation then.
“Walk with me?”
That wasn’t in this conversation, either.
