Into the Ether - Complete

The Winter of Our Discontent: Part 19

I was sitting staring at the wall still a couple of hours later when Celeste knocked. I opened the door wearing one of my Russian God's St. Basil's shirts.

"One of Dimitri's?" she asked softly. Not a hard guess, given it had Cyrillic writing and hung almost to my knees.

"I can't remember if it's the wrestling one or the track and field one," I wailed, dissolving into tears. "He did tell me..." Fuck! I didn't even know why I was crying. This was ridiculous!

Closing the door and sitting on my bed, Celeste reached into the large bag she was carrying and fished out a large block of chocolate.

"Let's start with the staple of pregnancy food!" she said with a kind smile. I broke a large hunk off and passed it to her, and we sat together chowing down on chocolate as she went through the rest of her purchases. It looks as though she'd bought half the drug store.

"Prenatal vitamins," she said, showing me the first large plastic bottle. "Take two a morning every morning. I also got you ginger tablets for morning sickness if you get it, these for indigestion if you get that and finally you might end up needing these for constipation," she said with an apologetic smile.

"Right..."

"Also there's a whole heap of things you shouldn't be eating. It's explained in the early chapters of this book," she said, handing me a dog-eared copy of 'What to Expect When You're Expecting.' "There are other books which are good for labor and delivery, but maybe wait until you're a bit further along for those," she advised, "They can be a bit scary at first!"

I was looking at Celeste thankfully when an errant thought crossed my mind. How did she know so much about all of this? I looked at her trying to phrase the question, but my face must have given it away. She looked torn.

"The book is a little old now because it's mine, but I don't need it anymore," she said finally, picking at a thread on my quilt cover and not meeting my eyes.

"You mean...?"

"Yeah. When I was nineteen."

We sat in silence for a little while. I wasn't sure whether she wanted me to ask.

"She's eight, now," Celeste said very quietly. "She lives with my parents, and they're raising her as my sister. She doesn't know, but Stella is mine." I looked up to see a single tear on Celeste's cheek. I reached across and brushed it away. "No one but Alberta knows, so I'm trusting you to keep it to yourself."

"I will," I vowed. "So that's why they visit every Christmas, and you go there every year?"

"I go for her school holidays," she said nodding. "And she's going to be coming here to school when she's eleven."

"Are you looking forward to it?"

"I can't wait," Celeste grinned. "They'll be here tomorrow so you'll get to meet her then."

"Her father...?"

"Is an oxygen thief, who I'd happily stake in his sleep if I knew I could get away with it," Celeste said with a scary look on her face. "I'll tell you about him sometime, but not today."

We each took another piece of chocolate.

"The book is for human pregnancies, but it's all pretty much the same. Dhampirs tend to have fewer complications than humans, but other than that there's no real difference. You'll need to be careful not to overdo your exercise and be very careful when you're sparring. I'll obviously avoid your stomach when we practice, but you're going to need to let Alberta know so she can rearrange your schedule. Have you worked out when you're due?"