reality, Xi is a good catch—this is why my sister lured him with her throaty laugh and…whatever else she sneakily did with him at that dance. She made the right choice though with this wealthy butcher and his stable extended family. This is just going to end up being more adulting than she’s used to. My little sis is going to have to finally grow up.
“You’ll get used to it,” I say.
She doesn’t know this, but his family hates her. They hated her so much they were ready to force him to call off the whole marriage. I had to sell our house in order to give them the first payment on the exorbitant dowry they demanded. This surrogacy is actually the reason I’m able to stop paying rent to the new owner of our home (who was set to evict me for a higher-paying tenant), buy back our small family house and make the final payments on the dowry. In the final balance I’m doing this for Lucy. Not just for myself and for Berg, but for my sister’s future. I have to believe my parents would be proud.
“Chloe, are you ever moving back? I know that Mom and Dad left you their house in the will but…”
“Fuck, no,” I blurt out.
“Oh, well, I didn’t know you hated it here so much,” she pouts.
I blow out a frustrated breath. I’ve never had a boyfriend in my life. And I’m twenty-three years old. Never been kissed. Never so much as held a man’s hand or flirted. Nothing. It’s just that I was super busy for a very long time with caring for both of my parents who were very ill. Lucy is four years younger than me and I basically turned into her mother figure. I had a lot on my shoulders. The one good thing was that Dad had inherited our house and the land it was on from his parents, so it was ours outright. We owned it. And then just before Dad became ill, he’d sold his business and invested the currency in Gravian securities. Because of this at least there had been a roof over our heads and a small currency allowance coming in that wasn’t huge, but enough to keep us all fed and clothed. And Dad willed all of it to me. I don’t plan on letting Lucy become destitute, but I give her credit—Mom and Dad passed and she found a way to jump over elsewhere, to a brand new instant family and a way to support herself. She just needed my help keeping that plan in place.
Sometimes I feel so superior to Lucy, like I’m the brains and she’s the beauty. But is what I’m doing here on Tarvos all that different than what Lucy did in order to find stability?
I do a lot of deep thinking sometimes. I get these odd, subversive ideas that females can have agency and think and act for themselves and don’t need a male to define who they are. Maybe I can start my own business on Tarvos, just like I’d started on New Earth…
“Bestla,” a reedy voice shouts from the other side of the thin wall separating my bedroom from the rest of the house. “That motherfucking human is jabbering away again like a screaming toddler. Tell that female to shut the fuck up so I can get some sleep.”
The back of my neck grows uncomfortably hot. I know my sister can’t understand the Hyrrokin language, but the cuss words are pretty universal.
“Who is that?” she gasps.
I chew on my lip, and then answer, “That’s Grandma Narvi, Bergelmir’s grandmother. Her room is next door to mine, and she’s got a bit of a potty mouth.”
Lucy’s eyes widen. “Girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”
5
Chloe
The very next day I move into Bergelmir’s domicile. And my sister’s warning echoes in my ears.
What have I gotten myself into?
Guess I’m finding out today.
I get up, use the cleansing unit and then put on a blue tube top and a pair of shorts and sensible shoes. I pull my long black hair into a low ponytail. Then I pause to look at myself in the mirror. I look the same—the same weight, the same height, the same thick-thighed person I’ve always been, but I don’t know, I look different. Better? I shrug. Maybe it’s because I’m pregnant? Or maybe it’s the fact that I’m actually here, on Tarvos, where I’ve wanted to be for so long? Not sure.
I leave the