“Ah, thank you, dear. It was no trouble at all. It does my old heart good to see such happy children, especially among those so well behaved. I do worry about you though, being all alone. There are many women who meet the visiting Ragoru when they come in on the seventh day. You should make yourself pretty and go down to see if you take a fancy to any of those males.” Grandma Rose gave such a bawdy wink that Betani flushed scarlet.
It was true that she was fascinated with the males, but she doubted that any would look twice at a woman with children. Few human men in the Citadel would accept the burden of another man’s progeny; she didn’t hold on to hope that an alien male would be any more accepting. Not that she would ever say so in front of her children. They were the most precious things in her world. Instead, she gave an embarrassed shake of her head.
“You don’t find it odd?”
The elderly woman snorted and batted the air with one hand. “I find men odd in general. How much odder can it be with another species? Why, if I were a few decades younger, I’d show them boys a thing or two and take a chance myself.” She flapped her gray shawl around herself and preened, making Betani grin.
“I certainly wouldn’t be able to compete with you, Grandma Rose,” she laughed. Despite the disgust of the gossipers, she had seen women flocking to meet the Ragoru who came into the Citadel and doubted she would even be able to compete with any of them. Betani wasn’t any great beauty. What few curves she once possessed had flattened out over a handful of years of starvation as her frame painfully thinned. While she was slowly filling out again, she was still self-conscious. It didn’t help that her reflection showed a woman with brown hair that was so lackluster in hue that it bordered on mousy.
Grandma Rose pursed her lips and patted Betani’s hand. “You just think about it. You’re a good young woman, and beautiful inside and out. I hate seeing you struggle all alone.”
Betani smiled and followed the elderly woman as she made her way toward the door, stopping to kiss the children as she went. After she left and the door was closed behind her, Betani leaned against it, her mind circling around the offered bit of advice. A happy squeal distracted her, and she shook her head with a weary laugh.
No good daydreaming about something that’s not going to happen.
Stepping over to the table, she shooed the kids away and unpacked her bag, smiling at the appreciative sounds her children made as she pulled out the special selections of food offered in the mid-market in the poor sector. While the wagon came twice a week with staples, the specials could only be received early on Friday mornings.
As the children hovered over the dried fruits, Betani stepped to the cupboard and secretively slipped the toys into it, followed by the candies and sweetbread emptied from her coat pocket while they were distracted. The rest of her package she wrapped and bound again, setting it on the counter to await Ava’s arrival. She knew that it wasn’t wise to cross the woman, but Ava would take the best for herself, leaving her children with little in the way of treats.
Alis and Nik had gone long enough without; she couldn’t bear to see disappointment on their faces again. It was worth the risk. Unwilling to let the warder ruin her mood, Betani grinned down at her antsy children. She couldn’t wait to see the look on their faces when Mother’s Night came. With that accomplished, she turned to the stove, filling it with logs to heat it so she could prepare dinner.
Alis watched her silently from where she sat at the table, her feet swinging as she hummed while Nik stuffed chunks of dried apple into his mouth, his full attention absorbed in his task as Betani took out a sharp knife and a block of cheese.
“Momma, why don’t we have a solstice tree?” Alis asked.
Betani paused mid-slice, her throat suddenly closing tight. She attempted to brush it off with an amused laugh and cut off several chunks from the block before wrapping it in the cheesecloth and returning it to the larder.
“Solstice tree? Wherever did you hear about that?”
“At school. Jeb, who sits next to us in our class, said that his father trekked all the way to the mountain edge where he cut down a tree for Mother’s Night. Why don’t we have one? Is it because we don’t have a daddy? Jeb says so.”
“Don’t pay any mind to what Jeb says,” she said firmly as she pulled out the loaf of bread she had baked earlier that morning. She cut several slices, trying to ignore the way her heart ached at the things her children now knew they were missing out on since they were able to attend school with the other kids. “We may not have a solstice tree, but we have much to be thankful for. A tree is not what makes Mother’s Night special. It is us together as a family.”
Alis’s face fell but she nodded her head, not looking entirely convinced.
“Yes, Momma.”
Chapter 2
They were well into their meal when the banging started on the door. Alis and Nik froze, but Betani gave them an encouraging smile as she stood from her seat. Smoothing Alis’s hair in passing, she walked to the door. Clenching her skirt in her hand with the sudden dip of her stomach, she pulled the door open with her free hand, coming face to face with her neighborhood’s warder. Ava smiled grimly and nodded to her.
“Good eve, Betani,” Ava greeted with a broad smile as she pushed her way into the small apartment. She brushed the snow from her shoulders and arms and cast a short glance around the warm, cheerfully lit room. “Seems that everything is quite homey for Mother’s Night. Good, good. That means, of course, that you have my fees ready, I imagine.”
Betani swallowed and nodded her head in a small, jerky fashion, her stomach twisting and turning with anxiety. “I have everything in the kitchen. If you come with me, I will show you where.”
Ava grinned easily, rocking back slightly on her heels for a moment before falling into step behind Betani. The warder lurking right behind her was unnerving, but Betani tried to ignore it as she stepped into the kitchen where her children were still seated around the table. Two pairs of identical eyes widened and watched solemnly as Betani led Ava over to the counter and unwrapped what she had. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the way they exchanged a look, their shoulders slumping with defeat, no doubt expecting the warder to take everything. At that moment, Betani had never been surer of her actions despite the way the other woman pursed her lips as she looked the contents of the bundle over.
“This looks a little short from the Fenders residence, but that doesn’t surprise me,” Ava muttered. “The Council’s policies are to give in accordance to need, from what I’ve heard. No doubt they give you less because you have only two scrawny kids rather than a healthy brood that Gandra Fenders has,” Ava said with a dry chuckle.
Despite intentionally shorting the bundle, Betani winced as Ava’s verbal barb struck deep. She had little doubt that there was some truth to that. Although Gandra also only had two children, her children were larger, robust children of a typical healthy size. She had little doubt that more food and sweets would have been offered for them, whereas Alis and Nik were waiflike in comparison and viewed as needing far less. Despite, knowing the truth in Ava’s assessment, Betani felt hot anger boil in her belly at the woman’s callous observation in front of the children. Swallowing it back, she inclined her head in a show of meekness.