Chapter 25
SUSANNA
Two weeks later.
“Ready?” Xavran poked his head into our bedroom in his home in Diria.
“Yes.” I smoothed my hands down my paisley-print maxi dress.
Its loose fit not only kept me cool in the warm weather on Aldrai, it also hadn’t required any alteration when I bought it. All tight-fitting clothes for women on Aldrai had three pairs of darts, tailored to accommodate six pairs of breasts, which left me with four useless bumps in the front. When buying ready-to-wear clothing, I always looked for something loose and flowy for that reason.
“Come.” Xavran took my hand. “Arkrel and Yurie are here with their children already.”
Arkrel and Yurie were the mothers of some of the kid’s friends from school. I got along really well with both women. The three of us had recently gone on a shopping trip to Arqa, and I’d been to Arkrel’s home for a “girls’ night in” when their husbands and Xavran took all our children on a fishing trip one afternoon.
“All right, let’s do it.” I smiled, letting him lead me down the pathway from our bedroom to the common area of our garden-home.
Xavran had expanded this space by merging it with Gelnall’s old room. The children and I had helped him with moving the hedges, rearranging the paths, and seeding the grass. It looked large and airy now, though still a bit short on flowers.
Garlands of hand-painted paper flowers decorated the hedges, instead. The kids had been working on those for days. Their schoolmates had helped them too.
All the extra space allowed us to set up almost every possible yard game I could remember from Earth. From the horseshoe pitching, to ladder toss, to beanbags—they all were here, mixed in with the Aldraian games for the kids to play.
Xilvo and Ivex were running around, explaining the game rules to anyone who cared to listen.
Poles decorated with flowers held up strings with kids’ drawings. Almost every person in the kid’s school had contributed their art for our decoration.
Arkrel beelined to Xavran and me. “So, what are we celebrating?”
I shrugged. “Do we need a reason?”
Yurie came by, chewing on my version of pigs-in-a-blanket that I’d managed to re-create with local sausage and some modifications to Xavran’s bread dough. “These are so good! You’ve got to give me the recipe.”
“Of course we need a reason for the party,” Arkrel insisted.
“A spring party?” I suggested uncertainly. Without any clearly defined seasons on Aldrai, it was hard to celebrate any of them.
“What holidays do you have back on Earth at this time of the year?” Xavran prompted. “Maybe we could celebrate one of them?”
“Right, well... I need to see. Do you have your communications device on you?”
He produced the small disk from his pants pocket, and I verified the calendar from back home. It didn’t perfectly align with the Aldraian, but the two were close enough.
“Well, the closest holiday is Mother’s Day. It’s celebrated this week in North America,” I said.
Ene and Illal were running by. Both stopped at my words abruptly.
“Mother’s Day?” Ene tilted her head.
“How do you celebrate that?” Illal wondered.
“Usually, by getting together for brunch or dinner. But a party like this would be very appropriate, too,” I assured them. “People hug their mothers and wish them a happy Mother’s Day. When I was little, I remember I also made a necklace from painted macaroni for my mother once.”
My nanny Marissa and I had spent a whole day first painting the dry macaroni, then waiting for them to dry. I was so excited to give it to my mother during the formal Mother’s Day brunch she was hosting. After the brunch, however, I found the necklace in the garbage bin in the kitchen.
I was too little to realize that painted macaroni wouldn’t go well with my mother’s designer clothes and fine jewelry. I cried that day and never made her anything ever again. But as I got older, I realized that the best part of that day had been painting the macaroni with Marissa, no matter what my mother did with the necklace afterwards.
“Well, that’s what we’re celebrating, then.” Ene shrugged, then hugged me unexpectedly. “Happy Mother’s Day, Susanna.”
“Happy Mother’s Day!” Illal joined her.
“Oh!” I gasped, momentarily lost for words.
Xavran leaned to my ear. “Ene told me you spoke to her about choosing your own family. I guess they’ve made their choice.”
“Hey!” Illal ran to a group of children by the snack table. “It’s a Mother’s Day party. You're supposed to hug your mothers and wish them a happy Mother’s Day!”
Arkrel laughed as all eleven of her children rushed to hug her. “Well... If that’s how traditions are shared between the worlds, I don’t mind it one bit.”
Soft humming of the engines of landing aircraft announced the arrival of more guests. I spotted Inie, Xavran’s ex-mother-in-law. Xilvo ran to me with a hug, then turned to see his grandmother enter the room.
“Ene invited her,” he said. “We decided to give her another chance to be our grandma. But only if she doesn’t yell at our dad.”
“Hey, Susanna, Xavran!” Stefan waved to us from the entrance. He walked toward us, supporting his wife Esstal under her elbow. A giant two-tier baby stroller hovered next to them.
“Thank you for inviting us,” Esstal said after our greetings.
Dressed in a long, loose dress, she had it tied with bright belts around her torso three times, under each pair of breasts.
“How are the babies?” I cooed, leaning over the stroller where their two-week old infants lay in two rows. A tube tipped with a nipple descended from a large bottle on top of the stroller, allowing each baby to feed whenever they wished. “They’re so precious.”
“They’ve been pretty good. Calm and happy.” Esstal arched her back, rubbing her side. “But they eat all the time.” She laughed. “I’m either nursing or pumping all day.”
A woman walked in at that moment, accompanied by at least a dozen little boys and one girl who held a square of paper in her hands. I recognized Kessra and her mother from the meeting at the principal’s office.
“Kessra is here,” Illal whispered under her breath.
Ene squared her shoulders.
I took her hand. “This is our home and our party, Ene,” I reminded her. “We are nice to our guests, and we expect them to treat us the same. Right?”
She nodded. “But if they don’t behave, they’ll have to leave.”
“Absolutely. But can we give everyone a chance first?” I asked.
Ene drew in a breath. “Fine.”