Chapter38
The Symbolism
Zinnia’s POV
The second Aggie pulled up in front of my house, the door whisked open and Dash was there, the porch light showing me his smile. Someone had been watching out the window for us to return.
“How did it go?” he asked, coming down the steps to pick up Melitta’s car seat. She was sound asleep between the excitement, being fed and the slow ride home. “Did you have a good time?”
“We had a wonderful time,” I told him, taking the hand he offered me to step out of the cart.
“Thanks for driving them, Aggie,” Dash said, and I echoed his thanks to her. With a wave, Aggie
took off.
The evening had been wonderful, and I hated to see it end. It had been much like the ceremony
where the women of the commune celebrated me and my impending birth, only this time, it was all about Melitta and good wishes and blessings for her. Each woman had come up to my baby, put
her hands on Melitta’s head, repeated her name and welcomed her to the sisterhood of women.
Then they’d each given her a specific blessing.
May you always know the joy of laughter.
May you learn the satisfaction of hard work.
May you find peace in nature.
May you be a friend of all animals. (That had been Aggie.)
May you find strength in the sunshine and wonder in the moon. (That had been Sunny.)
May you always seek knowledge.
May good health always be yours.
May you always be surrounded by love. (That had been Mist.)
There had been food and dancing, and I’d discovered that girls were invited to the baby blessings at age twelve, so I’d been surrounded by a number of pre–teens and teens who all, at one point or another during the evening, had told me they’d be happy to babysit Melitta.
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One girl, a sweet, serious girl of fourteen with the interesting name of Juniper Berries, had stayed around Melitta much longer than the other girls.
“My dad said if I want to start babysitting, I needed to stand out from the competition,” she said seriously. “So I was thinking, maybe I could stop by tomorrow and get to know Melitta more. Then as you get to know me better, you’ll see that I’m good with her and you’ll trust me to babysit
her.”
“That sounds nice,” I said. “If your parents say it’s OK, Melitta’s usually the happiest in the
morning, and afternoons are her grumpy–grumpous time.”
“My dad,” she corrected me easily. “My mom left after I was born, so it’s just Dad and me. And my
grandparents.”
She said it matter–of–factly, without the least bit of self–pity, and I imagined all the women in the commune shifting to fill in for the missing mother in little ways. Now that I was part of Serenity, I
could pitch in, too. I thought of all the things I’d wanted to do with my mom that she never wanted to do with me, so without thinking, I offered, “Well, if you come over, maybe you could
help me make a batch of cookies, too?”
“I love to bake,” she said. “Is ten too early?”
“Not at all. Just make sure you clear it with your dad, first.”
“I will!” she promised. “My grandma’s waving to me, so I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Aggie came over and sat beside me.
“I see you met Juniper. Sweet girl,” she said.
“She is. She told me her mother left when she was a baby. I don’t understand that,” I said, pressing a kiss to my little honeybee’s cheek.
“Her mother was a local girl, not part of the commune. Sunk her claws into Juniper’s father and he wouldn’t hear any counsel about the type of girl she was. Got pregnant when they were both seventeen and she had the baby, promised River she’d build a life with him at Serenity since her parents weren’t the type to want a baby around. River picked her up from the hospital, was holding Juniper in her car carrier and she told him she needed to run to the bathroom. Said to go ahead and put the baby in the car and she’d meet him out there.”
“Oh, no,” I said sadly.
“That girl snuck out a different entrance where she had a friend waiting for her. River waited an hour, carrying Juniper around in her car seat all over that hospital looking for her mother. Had her paged. Tried calling her but she wouldn’t pick up. Texted her and she said leave me alone.”
“That’s heartbreaking.”
“He took Juniper to his parents‘ house here, and he found a note in the car seat from that girl telling him she didn’t want to be a mom, didn’t want to waste her life on the commune when there were the bright lights of big cities to see. She said he could have the baby.”
“He was only seventeen,” I mused.
“We all pitched in with Juniper while he finished school and worked. His parents have been wonderful, and he’s stayed at home with them because it was easier with Juniper.” Aggie looked away. “Moonbeam always said she wasn’t surprised. She’d had visions and that local girl wasn’t meant to be his.”
“Who was?”
Aggie snorted. “Moonbeam has always said our other granddaughter, Breeze, was his destiny. What she said was a lot more complicated and mentioned chakras, auras and planets aligning in different houses and other bullshit, but it all boiled down to destiny. Of course, Moonbeam’s too herbally mellow to be a reliable fortune teller, so who the hell knows.”
I laughed at that.
“Let me know when you’re ready to go, Zinnia.”
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.