mainly meat slow cooked over fire pits. I end up eating a lot of this local food and I feel really good. Strong and ready for this baby to come into the world.
I just need this time to myself. Time for some deep thinking and reflection. Also, time to bond with my own baby. He’s been kicking more, like he knows I’m really his mom too.
Awww…I’m going to be a mom.
This whole time I was readying myself for life after giving birth to Bergelmir’s baby—trying to figure out what I’d do afterwards when it was just me again, a single woman making her way in the universe. And instead, my life is doing a complete turnaround and I’m going to be a mother.
I worry I won’t be a good mom.
I worry that I’m consigning my child to a broken family.
And now I know that above all, I’m dedicating myself to this life growing inside of me, forever. I look down and say, “just you and me kid.” And then I pat my belly and take another sip of hot tea.
I’ve been in Perth for a whole month when Riley and Bestla finally show up. I’ve been ghosting everyone. I guess they were fed up.
It’s just…to be truthful, I don’t trust anyone. I basically think they were all in on it. Or maybe they weren’t? I don’t know so I’m grumpy about the whole thing.
I’m sitting in my normal mid-morning location, on a super-comfy chair on a terrace that is a short walk from my first-floor apartment. I’ve ordered a cup of Traq and some meat. And I’m staring at the ocean and reading an ancient print book. I’m trying to get comfortable because damn, my lower back is killing me today.
“Whatcha reading?” I hear a friendly voice ask.
“Riley,” I grimace.
“Don’t look so happy,” she comments. “You know I’d have to come by eventually, considering you never answer anyone’s messages. We had to check on you.”
My best friend plops into a nearby chair and that’s when I see she’s brought Bestla along with her too.
“Both of you?”
“Of course I’d come,” Bestla grins as she takes a seat opposite me. “You’re carrying my grandchild.”
Tears well up as I remember she’s my baby’s grandmother. I’ve always thought of Bestla as Bergelmir’s family, but now she’s my family too.
I put down my book and rest my hands on my stomach. “I’m fine,” I tell them.
“I told your fans that you’re okay and you’re just on a hiatus and you’ll be back soon,” Riley says. “And Grandma Narvi is doing her best to keep your orders filled and put out any fires.”
“Thank you.” This is how upset I’ve been. I care so much about all of that, and yet I’ve dropped it and gone dark. I did take a bit of time before I left to ask Grandma Narvi to contact customers to offer refunds and delay orders and put that all on automatic. But other than that, I went dark. I stopped creating vids for Intelgram. I let Question and Answer Tuesdays and Throwback Thursdays go by the wayside. I don’t have an ounce of headspace to apply to anything right now other than trying to recover from my heartache and ready for the birth of my baby boy.
“I think you need to forgive him,” my friend says.
“No.”
“I think that he really likes you…” Riley starts.
“Likes me? The animals on the beach ‘like me.’ My sister ‘likes me.’”
“He loves you desperately,” Bestla offers, “until his last, dying breath.”
I blink.
“That…” Riley points at Bestla. “What she said. That’s how he feels. But Bergelmir being Bergelmir, doesn’t actually say any of this. Everything he did was misguided but it was for you and the baby. Apparently he was protecting you and the whole world at the same time? Our former President was about to sell extinction level weapons to the Mafia. Bergelmir masterminded some whole takedown of Narcisstone’s administration from his little command center in your attic.”
I fist my hands. I didn’t know about any of this because Perth is a place you go to on purpose to not get any news. But, this doesn’t change anything. “He doesn’t love me,” I retort. “He was protecting me like he’d protect any other being. He doesn’t love me because of how he treated me. How could he let me carry my own baby and not even tell me it’s mine? He didn’t even ask if I wanted to have a baby. And now I’m going to be