My vision is hazy as the beige river reeds that make up the roof of our two-story hut come into view. It was early in the morning, before sunrise, when I first stirred and was unable to lull myself back to sleep. Turning to the sound of shallow breathing, my wife lay's beside me. Her breathing steady and large stomach-that now houses a baby girl- moving along with her even rise and fall of her chest. Her face is peaceful and the large mass upon her stomach wriggles. My suntanned working hands move to hover just over her stomach, where I rest them upon, touching the white, smooth cotton cloth that makes up my wife's nightgown. I release a quiet, but long exhale and close my eyes.
Whispering, with tightly closed eyes, "Akua, the great Wolf God, we thank you for bestowing a child upon us."
"By the Gods, Kai." My wife chuckles. "You say that every morning." Her eyes are upon me and her mouth lifts into a feathery smile as she stirs to face me.
I twist my body so my feet touches hers and my face peers upon my lovely wife's face more clearly. The curves of my wife's frame fits against my bare muscled body. Her deep, red hair snakes over the white cotton pillow case and makes it more starkly pronounced.
In a daze, I purr, "I have to, my love,"
Catching her long tendrils of hair in between my forefinger and thumb, I twirl her hair making them glint in the light, and this turns them the color of freshly bloomed roses.
"I know the Gods gave us our dear Kalena, but you are drowning me in your puppy love every morning!" Her words come out exasperated, but her voice soon booms into a lighthearted inclination that is infectious. The side of my mouth quirks up into a grin.
"Oh, so YOU don't like it then, hmm..." I give a slight anticipating pause, to add to the humor of my next words. "Well, I guess I'll have to give it to someone more worthy of my love!" I scoff and cross my arms over my chest.
Then moving closer to her belly, I begin covering her pregnant stomach with sloppy kisses.
"Ha-ha-ha!" Lani bursts into uncontrollable laughter, her hands move to her abdomen in attempts to contain the laugh that had already escaped from her small (for a pregnant woman), but shapely body. Her hearty laughter seemed as if she laughed for two. Was Kalena one of those laughs, laughing at my fatherly antics with Lani? Or is it the laughs of my other children - the ones that have failed to stay anchored to earth and have joined the Gods-, who were laughing at our brief moment of tranquility. Beginning to avert my eyes down onto the sheets of the old bed, I abruptly stop and my face turns ashen, leaving my strong back, stiff. Lani's joyous laughter and the echoed laughs of my lost children, cease.
"Aya, Kai! It wasn't your fault. You know that. My body was not worthy to bare children. If anything, it is MY fault. The gods were generous enough to place a child within me. The true child of the Gods." Lani's kind, but firm hands, soothingly moves up and down my broad, scarred back in loving reassurance.
"I'm sorry, you wouldn't be this way if it weren't fo-"
"Don't finish that sentence..." It comes out sterner than expected, and the seemingly soft interruption that sounded in my head failed to croak out.
My wife's face was close to mine as I turn back towards her voice. She is sitting, tall and her sparkling, green eyes, that resemble the beautiful saturated green of an emerald, meet my dark, teary ones. We press our foreheads against each other and I squeeze my eyes shut, a tear escapes from the edge of my eye. Our hands entwine and we both sigh, both from sadness and sweet release.
GONG...Tam...Tam...
The loud metallic sound of the instrument placed on the border of the magically sealed village sounded, which sent my tears away and my body abruptly leaving the comfort of Lani's warmth.
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