The Chieftain

by V. K. Ludwig

  He gazed over his shoulder and gestured Autumn he needed a few more minutes, then took a step toward me. “I don’t think she wants to take Rose away from you. She just wants her child back. I get you went through a lot, Rowan. But so did she.”

  I stared at him, remorse and resentment battling each other inside my chest. An apology was in order, but that wouldn’t mean I gave up on Rose.

  “You might be right, but that’s where the problem is.” I emphasized each sentence with a stab of my finger against his jacket. “I want Rose. She wants Rose. But we don’t want each other anymore. Now tell me, because you always think you’re so smart, how is that going to work out?”

  His eyes flicked back and forth between my index finger, which rested on his chest and the patch of yellow snow beside us.

  “That’s what I thought,” I said when no answer came. “One of us has to give up on her. It sure as hell won’t be me. That girl is the only good thing in my life. She makes me better, too.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “What makes you so sure she doesn’t want you? Ayanna told us she mumbled your name many times while she was unconscious.”

  “I wanna say the fact that she left me is somewhat of a hint,” I said. “But then, so was the bitchslap she gave me after she woke up. She said she hates me. She bitched about me being unable to understand things or something. Not sure what that meant.”

  Not to mention, I am shooting blanks.

  Failed at my duty to give her a child.

  I kept that part to myself, my throat feeling unbearably tight. It wasn’t exactly a secret. Darya and I knew. Autumn and Max knew. Everyone with a halfway-functioning brain could figure it out over a cup of tea. By not saying it, I kept the ugly truth at a distance. No need to dwell on how I failed my wife.

  I noticed my mind drifting off and shook my head to get it all back together. “Honestly, I don’t really give a shit about how Darya feels. There’s no way we could fix this. And I don’t want to fix it, anyway.”

  “Not even for Rose?”

  His question made unwelcome pictures pop up, framed as picnics by the lake, taking my wife and daughter into my arms or swinging four-year-old Rose between our hands. If only it were that easy. If I could have, I would have ripped those pictures out of my head, poured gasoline over them and fired up my grill with it.

  “I have to straighten out this mess once and for all,” I said more to myself than to Max.

  I punched my hands back into my gloves and stomped away, leaving Max behind with nothing but a quick nod.

  “When are you leaving for the mountains?” he shouted behind me, the strong wind tugging on his words.

  I held my outstretched palm up for a few seconds and continued pushing my feet through the snow, making sure I took the same path I used to come here. It was easier that way.

  The wind whipped against my cheeks. By the time I reached home, they felt tingly and raw.

  Darya sat cross-legged on the floor right next to the kitchen stove. She frantically tugged on her sweater and shoved the fabric back over her naked breast, her fingers trembling as if I had caught her drowning our child. My child. Hers. Whatever.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked, the tenseness on my forehead making me guess I had bewilderment written all over it.

  “Nothing.”

  She looked away. Avoided my stare at all cost. Then she rocked Rose who hung across her lap, the baby’s face redder than my cheeks.

  I wouldn’t exactly call myself a genius, but it’s not like the situation called for one. She had tried to nurse Rose. Feed her from her breast like she must have done it at the Districts. Her puffy eyes screamed of the outcome. Rose had refused.

  I had at least a dozen mean comments waiting behind my lips, but no destructive energy left inside me to catapult them at her. I got rid of all that when I fucked her like the brute she called me out to be.

  Wordless, I took my boots, gloves, and jacket off, and grabbed one of the clean baby bottles. With skilled hands, I prepared Rose’s milk and placed it into the bottle warmer.

  I rummaged through the kitchen drawers, shoving around lonely buttons, sewing needles and an arsenal of scissors, one just as blunt as the next — useless crap that had collected there over the years.

  “When Rose came here, your friend Bry tried to nurse her,” I said, pulling a thin plastic tube from a paper bag. “She didn’t have enough milk for both babies, hers and Rose, so she came up with this idea of a feeding tube.”

  I grabbed a sealed syringe from the first-aid basket underneath the sink, took it out of its wrap and sucked up some warmed milk. Then I attached the plastic tube to it, letting milk run through it and dribble onto the counter.

  “Did she latch on?” I asked and sat down beside them.

  She nodded. “But she gets upset because nothing’s coming out.”

  “I bet you still have some left. Just not enough to keep her from fussing.”

  I gestured her to lift her sweater once more, and she revealed the same breast she had tried to hide a few minutes ago. She positioned Rose close to her breast, who immediately rooted for the darker skin around the nipple. With gentle hands, I placed the tube right next to it, only seconds before Rose latched on once more.

  “How do you know all that?”

  “Just hold her still,” I said. “I’ll push the plunger and let some of the milk dribble through the tube and into her mouth.”

  “It’s working,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “Oh, I missed you so much, Rose. Mommy will never leave you again. I promise.”

  My heart pounded slow and hard at the sight. At her words too! I had made Rose a similar promise. Said I’d always protect her and never let her go.

  Muffled gulps sounded from Rose’s throat. Her brown-green eyes gazed up into her mother’s, and her hand patted and caressed Darya’s breast right above where she fed. At that exact moment, an overwhelming feeling of peace and harmony moved in between the three of us, turning my breaths slow and deep.

  “About that night,” I said, unable to ignore how Darya tensed up. “I kinda lost control and… I mean, I know that’s not an excuse.” I took a deep breath. “Guess what I’m trying to say is that I meant what I said that night, but I didn’t want it to come out the way it did.”

  Her gaze turned empty as if my sad apology triggered her mind to go into playback.

  A strand of long hair fell over her shoulder and framed her downtrodden expression. Even after all that happened, her beauty still captured me, turning a one-second glimpse into a one-minute stare.

  She had always been beautiful, and I broke another girls heart and went through a lot of trouble to get her. To make her mine. Seeing her like this, tending to the child she always wanted, made happiness and sadness wash over me in equal parts. Happiness that she got to blossom in her role as a mother. Sadness that I wasn’t the one who handed her the role in the first place.

  I suppressed the tremble in my voice. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  She swallowed an audible gulp. “You made that quite clear.”

  “We can’t have what happened cloud what’s been long overdue,” I continued, “you’re back now, and I have closure, which is the one thing that always kept me from divorce. Somehow I couldn’t do it unless I knew if you’re alive or dead. But I know now.”

  Like a young deer who had heard a suspicious sound, Rose unlatched and gazed at me, her mouth a perfectly shaped circle. Darya, however, stared at the embroidered baby blanket wrapped around Rose, as if her mind had long drifted off.

  “I’ll leave for the mountains in a few days, and Rose will come with me.” I pushed myself up and placed the syringe onto Darya’s lap, expecting a full-blown tantrum at any moment now. But the room remained void of any reaction, making my heart shudder away inside my ears. “Once I’m back, you and I need to sit down and discuss the terms of our divorce.”

  Chapter 14

  Darya

  Bry’s a
nd Einar’s homestead stood on top of the hill as if untouched by time. The siding had just as many drafty gaps as a year ago, the roof of the goat lean-to the only thing which had changed: it had finally collapsed.

  The drumming of the freezing rain drowned out the way my pulse thudded in my ears. It did little to calm my nerves, though. What if Bry turned me away? Not that I would blame her. When your best friend shows up on your doorsteps after her disappearing, chances are you’ll slam the door in her face. Especially if you know what she did. Bry most definitely did.

  Knocking on the simple oaken door sent after-quakes through my knuckles and deep into my already shaken bones. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed a friend now, and Bry was the only one left. Potentially left. I tugged on the collar of Rowan’s coat, the yards of extra fabric covering most of me and all of Rose.

  The moist hinges wailed. Einar, Bry’s husband, poked half his face through the gap, one foot right behind the door in a firm stance. A leftover of not-so-long-ago days, where a knock on the door might spell murder and rape.

  His lips pressed into a thin line, then let out an unexpected pop which scattered the thick, wet air around us.

  He dipped his head. “Guess I’ll check on the rabbits. Giv’em some hay. Three does are supposed to kindle soon.”

  Without another word, he grabbed a thick poncho from behind the door, swung it around himself, and stepped outside. He placed a palm on his bald head and hurried to the shed across from the house, leaving the door to their home open.

  I had no hurry to step inside. Might even have considered turning around. But Rose needed to get out of this cold, and I needed to get out of this constant bombardment of pea-sized ice clumps banging against my head.

  Bry stood by the stove, perhaps the only place in the room which offered some warmth. Like Rose, her son sat on her hips, pushing a cookie into his mouth with uncoordinated jerks of his hand. She had her arms wrapped around him as if to avoid a tough decision. Should she hug me? Point back at the door?

  When she didn’t move and didn’t say a word, I shut the door behind me and slipped us out of the oversized coat. I hung it on a nearby chair to dry, but already figured it would be just as soaked when we had to leave again.

  I pointed at her son. “They told me you named him Edric. He just turned six months, didn’t he?”

  The silence between us continued for what felt like hours, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. Bry placed Edric onto a thick, padded blanket nearby the stove and handed him a well-loved plush donkey from the plywood counter.

  “We wondered if you would show yourself here,” her voice sounded even harsher than I expected, leaving my legs too heavy to lift.

  “I —”

  “My brother lost his life searching for you,” she said with no elaboration, making remorse settle at the pit of my stomach like bedrock. My plan to apologize seemed ridiculous now and too small for the massive pain-filled cleft I had ripped into my Clan.

  Each part of my carefully prepared speech was useless here, so I walked over to her and placed Rose on the blanket next to Edric. She didn’t cling and didn’t fuss. That honor belonged to Rowan, and Rowan only.

  The moment her bottom touched the seashell-printed blanket, Bry’s arms darted forward and down. She shoved her hands underneath Edric’s armpits, picked his dangling body up, and took a step back.

  “And you brought her.” She pointed at Rose, that last word dripping with contempt. Almost disgust. “You two don’t belong here. I told Rowan from the start he should send her away, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  The bedrock inside my stomach cracked and crumbled. Fury oozed to the surface. I belonged. We belonged.

  The fury made its way up my throat and lashed from my lips. “You were the one who told me Rowan would have trouble to stay chieftain if he can’t produce an heir.”

  She pulled Edric into her chest. “What are you talking about?”

  “The day Rowan killed our old chieftain,” I said sharply. “Right here in this cabin.”

  Bry took a step toward me, her face tense, and her mouth revealing plenty of white from behind her lips. “I told you he needed an heir if he wanted to succeed. It didn’t tell you to disappear on your husband. On me. All of us.”

  I turned around and walked away, the surrounding air much cooler though it had only been a few steps. The stove did little to heat the cabin. Gusts of wind blew in from all sides, carrying with them most of the heat it produced.

  “I was upset and confused,” I whispered into the room, but her scoff told me she had heard. “For the first time, I thought I might actually be pregnant. And then… just another fluke. Rowan and I argued. Autumn got attacked. I…” My palm wandered across my mouth and nose like a reflex, helping me to breathe back those tears. And memories. Especially the memories. “I couldn’t handle it anymore and had to get away from it all. Getting myself impregnated was never the goal. Just a thing that happened along the way, after I realized there was no way back.”

  Warm and with gentle pressure, a hand landed and tugged on my shoulder.

  “It’s not that I don’t understand what you went through,” she said, the undertone of her voice softer now. “When Rowan figured out you disappeared, it devastated him. He fell deep. Drank, argued, fought. And we all had to watch, and nobody could do shit about it.”

  Drank. Rowan had never been much of a drinker. Not before, at least. This wasn’t the first time someone told me how much he had struggled. That my former best friend confirmed it, made it feel more real. It also made me feel more guilty.

  I took a razor-sharp gasp, preparing myself to share a burden I knew was only mine to carry. And yet, the overwhelming weight of it turned me into a selfish bitch, desperately looking for a place to unload. “He will file for divorce. And he wants to take Rose from me.”

  Even before I had turned around to look at her, my eyes had spotted how her brows had arched in disbelief.

  “He said that?” she asked. “Rowan said he will take her away from you?”

  My cheeks tingled. “He didn’t say it like that.”

  “Have you considered…” She paused for a moment, taking back a strand of her hair Edric tugged on. “Have you considered that he doesn’t want to take her away from you? That he just doesn’t want you to exclude him from the baby’s life?”

  “He is not her father!”

  She leaned back and brought more distance between us, brows furrowed, a slight shake coming from her head. “How many children does this Clan have where the husband is not the father? Most of them still take care of them. Raise them. And if they got the balls for it, they love them as their own.”

  “But, but…” The gears inside my brain turned and turned, making me nauseous and dizzy. How did she not see it? How come nobody saw it? “I asked him to take care of her until I could be with her again. It was the best choice because I knew she would be safe. I didn’t think he would… he would —”

  “Love her?”

  Why did she have to use that word? Panic welled up inside of me, trying to cover the truth with logic. Didn’t work — I am so pathetic.

  Her question had slapped me at the back of my head. Rowan loved her. Of course, he did. It’s not that I hadn’t realized it by now, but pretending I didn’t made things… easier.

  “He only spent a few weeks with her,” I said, my voice way too desperate to convince anyone; my statement as solid as her termite-ridden floorboards.

  “So?” She walked back over to the blanket and placed Edric down, who offered his spit-soaked cookie to Rose. “You only spent a few weeks with her. Can you imagine living the rest of your life without her?”

  “Never!”

  “Neither can he.”

  I let her response sink in for a minute. It dragged me underwater like an anchor and drained all air from my lungs. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t picture Rowan in her life, but how would that have worked with nothing between us but hatred and regre
t?

  “She gave him a reason to live, you know,” she continued. “You and I know Rowan never wanted to be chieftain. He only had one ambition in his life: protecting his family.” She walked over to the sink, filled the kettle with the slow dribble from the faucet, and placed it onto the stove. “You disappeared, and he lost the only purpose he cared about. Sometimes I’d like to think that Rose gave it back to him and that this is why he loves her so much. Now that Autumn moved out… if you were to take Rose from him…”

  I didn’t mind her voice trailing off. She rummaged through a chipped plastic container and pulled out glass shakers with cut-up herbs in it. Slowly and deliberately, she sprinkled them into two mugs, giving my bad conscience enough time to twist my guts. I couldn’t picture myself staying at this place. But did that mean I had to break Rowan’s heart a fourth time?

  Bry walked up to me with a mug in each hand, one of them pointing at the table. We sat across from each other, the loose splinters of the rough bench poking my thighs the way it had a year ago. Two years. Since forever, actually.

  She placed the rim of the mug against her lower lip and took a small sip. “Did you have time to sit down and talk about what happened. And why it happened? What made you do it?”

  I shook my head and let my hands dart for the mug, hiding my frustration behind the dark blue enamel. “We don’t really talk at all unless it’s about Rose. We went for days without exchanging more than six sentences. Maybe it’s better like that.”

  My mind wandered back to that one night, making me clench my fingers around the mug. It was rough and raw and real, showing me the depth of destruction I had left behind on Rowan’s soul.

  “You two need to sit down and talk it out like adults,” she said. “Do you still love him?”

  “What?”

  “Love. If you still love him.”

  I gazed over to Rose, who had fallen onto her stomach and now chewed on one corner of the blanket. Knock. Knock. Knock. Bry’s knuckles hammered against the table.