Rest And Nap
Dash’s POV
I was sitting on the front steps of Aggie’s cottage, holding Melitta in my arms. Her tiny lips smacked several times from the suckling reflex as she slept, replete and safe.
How can I always keep you safe from the wolves, Melitta? It’s easy now, but what about when you start dating? I don’t want you to go through what some of my patients have suffered and endured.
I closed my eyes against those thoughts and forced myself back to the present, and this perfect, new life in my hands. Behind me on the porch, Zinnie and Aggie were talking quietly, and I tuned
into their conversation while gently rocking our baby in my arms.
When they stopped talking, I jumped in. “Zin, you said you were worried about what your family would do to the house when they made bail, so I had the locks changed today and some hidden security cameras set up. I’d considered asking your mother for the house key back when they were here, but I had no confidence that she didn’t have a bunch of copies of the key stashed in
their house.”
“That makes me feel better,” Zin said, sighing heavily. “I let Mom have a key to the house because
I didn’t want to fight about it with her.”
Instead, Zin and I had fought about it ourselves, but in the end, Zinnie’s mother had gotten her
key.
“The path of least resistance, Zinnie. It was easier than putting up with their shit.”
“I think they got the message that path was closed after yesterday,” Aggie said mildly, her voice
tinged with amusement. “You know, when they were taken away in handcuffs.”
“You’ve been married a long time, Aggie,” my wife was saying. “Did you ever have problems with
your parents or your husband’s parents?”
“More my parents,” she said with a low laugh. “Branch wasn’t the man they had in mind for me. He wasn’t even the man I had in mind for me. But he was heartstoppingly beautiful with the soul of a poet and the charm of a natural–born leader. There’s always been something about him that drew people in, made them believe in his vision…and here we are almost sixty years later, living
the dream.”
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“How’d you meet him?” Zinnie asked. She loved stories of how people met and got engaged, and she collected them like some people collected souvenir shot glasses.
I turned so I could see both women as they talked, pressing a kiss to Melitta’s little head to apologize for shifting her a bit.
“Oh, I met him in our junior year of high school. He’d already embraced the hippie culture wholeheartedly, while I was the good girl, the goody–two shoes. I followed rules and Branch broke
them.”
Zinnie laughed. “I would have guessed you were the rule breaker!”
“You know me now,” Aggie said. “But I’d been raised by strict parents — your
great–grandparents — and brought up to be a conformist. And there was Branch with his long
hair, hippie clothes and a peace sign hanging around his neck. He even brought his guitar to
school and played it during lunch hour. There were always people gathered around him, and one
day I wandered by while he was singing a song he’d written and stopped to listen. I knew better, but I was entranced by him. You could tell he was meant for something different, something
beautiful.”
“The commune,” Zin said.
“Yes, but at that point, it was a vision, not a reality. Branch was always a hard worker, and his
family were farmers; his father and two uncles had huge, adjoining farms. He worked the land with his family and loved it. Said he felt at home working the land, and he passed that love on to our son and now on to our grandson, Light.”
“So how did it start?”
Aggie smiled at Zinnie’s question. “Oh, Branch was a hard worker, saved every penny he could because he had this dream in the back of his mind. Then he started seeing me and talking about how he could make his vision a reality. He had about ten close friends who shared his dream, all like–minded boys on the verge of becoming men. They were dreaming of a life lived on their own terms, living off the land, raising what they needed so they didn’t have to depend on outside supplies.”
“That was quite an ambitious vision.”
“Oh, I’m not even covering a quarter of it. The original land belonged to Branch’s parents. At the beginning of our senior year, his father received a bad diagnosis, and Branch and his parents sat
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down and talked about deeding the land to Branch as long as he promised to build them a cottage and to let both of them live there for the rest of their lives. He promised and the commune became a reality with those first thousand acres.”
“So he owns the commune?” Zinnie asked, making Aggie laugh.
“Oh, no, Branch is no landowner. What he did was invite his friends to live here, and he instituted three rules. One, you had to commit to Serenity, meaning you had to build a home on the land assigned to you. Two, you had to work for the good of everyone living on the commune. Basically, we all shared what we had with each other. For farmers, we grew food to feed everyone. For the ranchers, they provided meat and eggs and milk for everyone. If a house needed to be built, the men built it. If we needed a wall, which you’ve seen for yourself, we built it. And three, if you lived here, you had to work here on the commune. No going off to a city job and then coming back to Serenity to play hippie. It required backbreaking work to shape this commune into what it’s become, and everyone had to pitch in.”
“So you turned into a hippie after all,” Zinnie teased Aggie.
Aggie scoffed. “Pfft. Not me. When Branch asked me to share his life, I told him I would on two conditions. One, he’d get me the animals I’d always wanted. Two, he would never expect me to participate in the woo–woo shit.”
“I guess he came through, then.”
“Oh, he did, and then some. He also helped me stand firm against your great–grandparents, who weren’t happy their oldest girl was marrying a hippie at eighteen and giving up college. They didn’t soften up until we had our son, and they became resigned to our lives revolving around Serenity. Then, after our boy got a little older, I told Branch I wanted to start an animal rescue, and he made sure it happened.”
“How’d you get the rest of the land?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, Branch’s two uncles sold it to us since their boys weren’t interested in farming. So his parents had a thousand acres, and each uncle had a thousand acres, and Branch thought three thousand acres was enough.”
“What a great story,” Zinnie said. “You standing up to your parents like that, especially at the time, took guts.”
“You stood up to yours, so maybe it’s a family coming of age tradition; we all wanted to be the
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good girls and please our families…until we didn’t. And then we forged ahead, making our own path.”
Aggie came and took Melitta from my arms after I gave our girl one last kiss.
I turned and faced Zinnie, her face still soft from the story Aggie had told us. “I’ll be out here early in the morning. Have a good night, and I hope Melitta sleeps well for you.”
After saying good bye to my wife, which I hated, I headed for my stall, ready for bed so I could be up early to help Zinnie with Melitta.
“Night, Tomás,” I said as I settled into bed for what I hoped would be a solid six hours of sleep.
That way, I could let Zinnie rest and nap during the day while I took over with Melitta.
It wasn’t even two hours before things got serious fast, and I learned exactly why Tomás was in llama witness protection.
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.