36

Stella

Everyone wants to help, and they offered as much as they could. Boden and Serg would volunteer to take Rafaella every time she fussed or cried. But they didn't have the one thing she needed.

I feed her, and I feed her, but it is never enough? How can one small baby be so ravenous?

"I can hold her, if you need a break," Max said. That was the third time he had offered in the past hour, according to the clock tick-tick-ticking on our bedroom wall as I paced.

"She's hungry," I snapped, because that should be obvious since the baby was attached to my breast, whimpering and crying between suckling.

"I just think you could use a break," he persisted. "You could even put her down in the basinet for a few minutes, and we could go outside together and get some air."

"I won't just abandon my baby!" I shouted at him.

"No one wants that. I would never abandon Fae."

"You told me to just leave her, even though she's crying!"

Max raked his hands through his thick, dark hair in exasperation. "For a few minutes!"

"But she needs me!"

"And you have needs, too!" he shot back.

A knock at our bedroom door silenced our argument. Neither of us moved toward the door, so Boden tentatively opened it and poked his head inside.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"How does it sound like we're doing?" I asked him in bitter exasperation.

He frowned in understanding. "Put the baby down, and put on your sweater. There is someone here to see you."

"I can't –" I started to argue, but Boden held up his hand.

"Five minutes, Stella. That's all I need," he assured me.

Max moved toward me with outstretched arms. "You don't even have to set her down. I'll take her."

The way Boden and Max looked at me was full of sympathy, pity, and fear. But the way they came for me felt aggressive, like they were cornering me to steal my hungry baby away from me.

My arms tightened protectively around her, and I backed into the wall behind me. Anger and fear bubbled inside me so much that I could hardly hold back a growl. If Max reached out any farther, I would've bitten his fingers.

Maybe he sensed that, because he hesitated and took a step back. He held up his hands, palms out, and his voice was soft and tender. "Stella, please. I love you, and I love Fae. Please let me help."

Somehow, that broke through. I still wanted to growl and yell at them to leave me alone, but deep down, I loved Max and trusted him more than anyone in the world. If he was saying I needed to let him help me, then I should let him.

"Okay," I said finally.

"Okay?" Max repeated, and he waited until I nodded to take Fae from me.

"We won't be long," Boden reassured me.

I pulled on my crocheted sweater over my white nightgown, and Boden led me through our little house and out onto the small front porch. Lazlo was waiting out there, and my heart immediately dropped. Remy was due back from her first hunting trip with his wife today, and I feared that something had gone wrong.

"What happened? Where's Remy?" I asked.

"She's fine," Lazlo said quickly to ease my fears. "She is still out on the hunt with Nova and Eden, but they will be back by nightfall. They always are."

"Oh," I said, but I didn't feel any less anxious because I still didn't understand why Remy's old friend was on our porch while Boden stood protectively behind me. "Why are you here then?"

"I brought a gift." Lazlo motioned to a brown and white speckled goat tied out in our side yard, just out of range of the garden. "This is one of our dairy does, Minnie. She's friendly and produces milk every day. If you dilute goat milk with water, you can feed it to a hungry baby."

I bristled. "How did you know my baby was hungry?"

"I reached out to Jovie because you and Fae seemed to be struggling lately," Boden explained.

"And Jovie talked to me because she knew that we had dairy goats," Lazlo elaborated. "Nova had to supplement breastfeeding with goat milk when our daughter was a baby."

"Oh." I went over to the goat and held my hand out, so she would sniff it. From the pictures I had seen in books, I thought she looked like a dwarf goat ( Capra hircus ). "She has such unusual eyes. I don't think I've ever seen a goat up close before."

"Well, she is also a very friendly goat, and she will be happy to help your family," Lazlo said.

"Lazlo has assured me that we can keep her on a tie out in our side yard, and she can shelter in the little shed that we store our gardening supplies in," Boden said.

"Oh." I pet Minnie's head and stared into the horizontal pupil and golden iris of her eyes.

"How are things going around here?" Lazlo asked.

"Good, good," Boden answered. "We're all settling in, I think. I've been working the third shift as a Guardian, which is nice, and Remy's finally found something she likes."

"The baby is hungry," I said, because I heard Fae crying inside the house. "How do I feed her?"

"Milking a goat as calm as Minnie is very simple," Lazlo said. "And I also brought a couple baby bottles."

Lazlo crouched down next to her and began explaining the process of milking her swollen udders. Boden listened and even gave it a go, but all I could hear and all I could think about was the baby crying inside the house.

It really didn't take that long to gather milk and prepare it with warm water, although it felt like an eternity to me as I listened to her cry. Max asked if I wanted to be the first one to try bottle feeding the baby, but I just shook my head, and I went to lay down in our bed. He stayed out in the living room with Fae, and Lazlo and Boden gave him tips about how to feed her.

Soon enough, Max came into our bedroom and proudly announced that she'd taken a bottle of goat milk and wasn't crying anymore.

My baby had been starving, but I hadn't made enough to feed her. Deep down, I had already known that. How else could I explain why she and I were so ravenous?