Page 12 of My Monster, My Choice

Surely, she couldn’t think he was born this way because of his birthing?

“What were you chanting, witch?” Loretta snarled. “Bespelled my husband into taking you in when we didn’t want a third wife, disrupting our happy family, and now you bespelled our firstborn son too?” Her voice raised on another scream.

“Happy family?” I ask, bewildered.

She and Sheila hated each other’s guts. In fact, it had been Sheila’s job to be second wife, to be the magnanimous one in the household, but instead she stole all of Lyle’s attentions and bragged about being the first to produce a child.

Loretta had viciously argued that bringing a girl child into the household was worthless. In front of little Tera, no less. And Sheila? She never defended her little girl.

“Witch! Witch!” she screamed, pointing a long-nailed finger at me. Rather witch-like herself. Of course, she could afford long nails. There was little that she did around the house. “You’re jealous because your own womb remains dry! No seed will take in you unless it’s that of a devil spawn.”

“I’ll go get Lyle,” Sheila hissed, and raced out of the room.

Loretta stared at me as soon as Sheila left. The horrid, horrid woman must see something in my face because her expression turns calculating, an ugly smile stretching her chapped lips.

“Maybe there was a reason you were offered as third wife, eh? Maybe things don’t work as they seem.” Her eyes dropped to my belly. She laughed maniacally, in the throes of a hysterical fit, as she stared down at her son.

I snatched the baby up from Loretta’s lap, afraid she’d purposely toss him to the floor. Loretta cupped her hands over her face, sobbing hysterically.

“What the hell will I do with that?” she shrieked, clutching the empty blanket he’d lain in and flinging it from her.

And a sinking feeling hits my gut when I realized I’d guessed correctly.

I hushed the baby in my arms, rocking him, but it was hard for him to stop crying with such carrying on happening.

A little hand tugged at my skirts. “Mutha Chwisthina? Is he scared too?”

Little Tera usually called me Momma Christina, when the other two weren’t present, but mother when they were. Smart as a whip, this child.

“Oh, baby girl.” I sat in a chair and used my other arm to pull her close, kissing her little cheek. “It’s just too noisy in here for him. But he’ll be fine. See how beautiful he is?”

I lay him on my lap and to my surprise—despite his mother’s shrieks in the air—he calmed.

But then Lyle and Sheila burst in.

“She did something to him!” Loretta wailed. “She marked my son!”

Lyle’s lips tightened, tired of being the go-between, the referee between his wives. No doubt he’d have gotten rid of me, payment from my father and Gary be damned, but it was convenient to have someone care for the girl-child he didn’t want to bother with.

That no one wanted to bother with.

Plus, for as much as Loretta and Sheila sniped, they were able to relax with me doing all the household work. They even got along better with someone else to focus their hatred on.

Lyle knew this. His wives must have fought constantly before I’d ever arrived.

He took one look at the baby and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I could see the emotions flit across his face.

Disgust. Disappointment. Another child he didn’t want to bother with. Then he looked at me.

A new emotion crossed his face as he took in my form.

Oh, God.

He was disappointed in the child from Sheila, even though she pleased him to no end in the bedroom. He was more disappointed in the son from Loretta. Maybe I could produce a child he’d take.

Except that could never happen. And it wouldn’t be long until Loretta mentioned it.

But then Sheila screamed. “Loretta!”

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