Beh snickers and presses her warm lips to my cold ones. She makes more sounds –a little louder this time—and rubs at my frigid cheeks with her hands. My skin warms quickly with her touch, and I go to the side of the cave to skin the rabbits for our dinner.
Beh has a lot of the other food already cooked, so when I give her the thin pieces of meat, it doesn’t take very long before we can eat. Beh makes a lot of noise between bites, touching various things around her as she does. She used to do that a lot—holding up one of the clay dishes to me, or maybe a stick or a fur—but she would often get upset after a while, so she didn’t do it very much anymore. She switches to the rhythmic sounds, which I like better, until I finally cover her mouth with mine and take her to our furs.
Early the next morning, my eyes blink open, and I’m a little disoriented from waking so early. Winter is for deeper, longer sleep, but something has pulled me from slumber early.
It’s my mate.
Beh is next to me in the furs, positioned up on her hands and knees and completely motionless. I look up at her just in time for her to cover her mouth, jump up, and bolt toward the cave entrance. Rolling out of the furs, I run after her and find her leaning over the edge of the ravine, vomiting. She is trying to keep her hair away from her face at the same time, and I can see she is struggling.
I move to her side quickly and wrap her hair behind her neck—holding it with one hand and steadying her with the other. After a couple more times, she sits back on her heels and starts to shiver. I pick her up, and she turns her face away from me. Once we are back inside the cave, I bring her the water bag, some dried mint, and a fur to wrap around her shoulders. She chews the mint, rinses her mouth, spits into the coals of the fire, making them hiss, and leans against my chest as I hold her tightly. I rock her gently in my arms, but my mate is unusually quiet the entire day.
Beh makes very little noise all day and falls asleep as soon as she lies down on the furs at night. I hold her close to me, and when I fall asleep, I remember one of my brothers who vomited for days and days until he died. Two more of the children in our tribe died the same way during that winter.
The next morning, the same thing happens.
On the following day, I haven’t slept at all, and I am terrified. I hold Beh and rock her in my arms. She makes a few noises, but her eyes are dull, and she looks so tired. Later in the day, she drinks some of the meat broth I make for her over the fire and eats some of the leftover grains she cooked the previous night.
She seems fine, but then again, she seemed fine later yesterday as well. I refuse to let her go, even for a moment. When she goes outside to relieve herself, I stay right at her side. She yells and tries to push me away, but I won’t budge. She finally goes, and then I pick her up and carry her back inside despite her feeble struggles.
Beh growls at me but ends up putting her head against my chest as we sit back in front of the fire. I place my chin on the top of her head and close my eyes.
“Ehd.” I perk up at the sound of my name-sound, realizing only then that I was starting to doze off. I look at Beh, and she looks up at me. She makes a lot more sounds and touches my cheek.
“Luffs.” When I make that sound, Beh always smiles. She usually says it back, too, but this time her smile doesn’t touch her eyes, and she says nothing in return. Instead, she takes my hand and puts it on her stomach.
“Ehd,” she says softly. I feel her hand press mine against her stomach, and memories flood through my brain. Women in my tribe who would be sick like Beh has been—often when they first woke up in the morning—would sometime later begin to show the child growing inside of them.
My fingers twitch, and understanding rises from the skin of my fingers, where they touch the warm belly of my mate, all the way up my arm and into my brain. My insides feel warm and gooey as my head is filled with thoughts of Beh’s stomach growing big and round. The pictures in my head continue, and I think of a tiny little person suckling at her breasts while I hold both mother and child to keep them safe.
“Beh?” I look at her, and my cheeks begin to ache due to the size of my smile, but I can’t help it. I lift Beh from my lap and put her down gently on the grass mat by the fire. I then lean down and brush my nose against the center of her stomach, right below her navel.
Finally, I have put a baby inside my mate.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Taking a long, deep breath, I inhale the scent of spring. It’s not really here just yet, but it is close enough that the air feels and tastes different. I can hear the chirp of birds as they begin to fly around in the shrubs near the ravine, and I wonder if Beh would like to eat their eggs.