The Telling

Progress is slow. She didn’t want to sleep with me the first night and I couldn’t bear to let her go. I wore her out with stories, one after another, until at last her eyes wearily closed and she fell into the depths of slumber.. only to awaken a few ahns later in the throes of a nightmare.

I held her and comforted her, and told her I loved her until she calmed, until I could hear her breathing evening out once again. She’s shy, painfully so and I have to think she feels as ostracized as I once did, alone in the world, despite the fact that I’m with her constantly. I can tell she misses her father, though she doesn’t ask about him. I wonder if it was something he said when he spoke to her, before he left, some secret they shared, a secret that I will never be a part of.

She refuses to allow me to remove the braids in her hair, or the pieces of shells embedded. I have agreed to let her keep them for as long as she wishes, such a small matter, considering the bigger picture. I have my work cut out for me.

She’s very articulate, when she speaks, which isn’t often, only when she has something to say. She likes to read and color, and even seemed interested when I told her that Julian liked to have tea parties. She asked me if he was her brother, now that the other was gone. The lump in my throat was so large, I almost couldn’t answer. This was something that needed explained, so I sat at the edge of the couch, pulled her onto my lap, and proceeded to tell her as much as I dared, not wanting her to feel confused.. or betrayed.

It’s always hard to settle into the midst of a new family, and once again, I felt it too soon to tell her about the baby. I will though, as soon as she feels more secure in her surroundings.

It had been a few days since I’d been able to meet up with my favorite Scribe, and things had happened, Charm not the least of them, that I needed to talk to him about. I immediately plunged into topics that I thought were priority, in said order. I felt him stiffen at the mention of Cain’s name, his mood not improving when I related to him what had happened with the assassin in the Square, and the one that seemed to think I had all the answers.

He would have allowed me to leave, had I wished it, even suggested that perhaps I should go back, to make things easier on Charm. For her to trust me again. I was silent. Not because I wanted to return to a life I had left in ashes, by my own doing, but because I felt he was able to let me go.. so easily, whether it was actually easy for him or not.

He doesn’t understand yet. Or perhaps he just can’t comprehend that I have no intention of leaving him. He doesn’t get that I smile when he does nothing more than simply walk into the room. That when he looks at me, my heart begins to flutter, and some of my timidness wanes. Maybe that’s my job, to make him believe. Or at the very least, to understand.

I told him a secret, something that I had considered.

Being a mother changes much.