Morningstar Manor

It was an absolutely beautiful day, and the two little groups - one comprising Bethan, Chandika, Rahul and Hanu, and the other just Sasha and little Morgan had found themselves in the garden. Chandika had prepared a snack tea for her little make-shift family, and Sasha had a book and a flask of iced tea for herself and sippy cup of juice for Morgan.

When the women had seen each other, Sasha had offered a bright wave to the little group, beckoning them over to the blanket she had set out in a patch of sun.

The Mocha was, as usual for a Saturday early morning, full of people either grabbing something caffeine-laden to-go on their way through, or lounging watching the harried folk.

Bethan was sitting at a table near the windows, half-reading her latest copy of Contemporary Pediatrics, and drinking a cup of karma chai. There was a muffin sitting on a plate next to her cup, white chocolate and cranberry, and she was trying to ignore it's siren call.

Cam had bagged himself a chair in a corner from which he could watch people come and go over the top of his black coffee, which he held before his nose, enjoying the armoa almost more than the taste. Not that is wasn't good - for all her attitude, Joy certainly made a good cup of coffee.

Jos and Toby were sharing a cafetiere and bickering good-naturedly over whose DS had flat batteries and whose was fully charged - they could never seem to convince anyone not to get them matching things - and here was the reason! How were they to know which belonged to which of them? The idea of stickers was obviously foreign to them.

Sasha was sitting on a coach, Morgan's car seat next to her. The baby was napping after a tiring shopping trip, and Sasha was taking the time to kick back and relax with hot chocolate before heading back up to the apartment.

The room was full of women, and Manny sat in a corner and wondered at how his life had exploded and come down in another pattern, in the last two to three years.

His mother was going over some lists on the phone while Corazon was sitting at the kitchen table, lovingly polishing the silver for Thursday. Morgan was putting potatoes from one basket into another and back again, and Sasha ---

Where was Sasha?

They had been to some function, quite formal, with speeches and some flawlessly boring meal; but now, Manny and Sasha merely wanted their kid and their own couch and a little bit of family time before it was bed-time, and the new week started again.

They were very elegant as they came down the steps to the crèche, where despite the day and the time, several children were playing in perfect harmony, pushing little wooden cars on little wooden slats representing streets and making brrwm-brrwm noises with it. Morgan's car was red.

A whole year! Sasha couldn't quite believe that it had been so long since Morgan had been born. The time had flown past. She was a married woman with an adorable child - it almost didn't seem real.

Luckikly, there were the Temmincks, who were much more practical at times. Maude had prepared an enormous birthday breakfast -- why wait until teatime? -- and Manny had splurged on a few colourfully wrapped boxes for mother and daughter, so when they woke up and came from their rooms, they'd get horribly spoiled.

( Birthday breakfast with happy Temmincks )

The Temmincks had a laundry service, but Sasha still couldn't quite get her head around sending out things like socks and boxers and scuzzy t-shirts - that sort of thing, she did herself. It was usually quiet (well, as quiet as it could be, with the machines running) down in the laundry room, and warm and cosy. Which was nicer in the winter, admittedly, than in the middle of summer, but it was still a good place to relax.

Today though, Manny was with her - he was off on a business trip later that afternoon, and was being very sweet and attentive in the meantime. Se was crouching in front of the dryer, pulling things out and handing them to him to fold. She still had to stifle an urge to giggle at the important business man taking such care in pairing socks.

There was a muffled noise of confusion from with in the drum of the dryer, and she pulled out holding something.

"What on earth...?" She asked, holding up a ragged, age-worn garment that had once been a corset of some kind, but now was little more than a collection of whale-bone strips, held together with frayed fabric.

Sasha was sitting in the Mocha, drinking an idea coffee and also trying to protect it from a very interested baby. Morgan was trying to get into everything at the moment! Every time she made a grab for the cup, Sasha would catch her hands, and pretend to eat the chubby little fists, making the little girl giggle and squirm delightedly. In between coffee rescue missions, Sasdha was trying to read the latest copy of Psychology Today, but she really wasn't getting very far.

It was a lovely day, just warm enough without being too sunny, so Sasha had taken her reading and her small daughter out into the garden, and was sprawled out on a large, soft blanket. She was absorbed in her book, but not so much that she didn't reach out every few minutes to remove something fascinating from Morgan's mouth, retrieve the wriggly baby from disappearing into the flower beds, and generally protect the baby from the garden - or should that be the garden from the baby?

Bethan could never quite decide which sort of Monday morning she hates the most - the ones where she has to get up early, or the ones when she's been on-call all night, and is coming back to bed at nine am. This particular morning was one of the latter, and she had stopped in the Mocha for a cup of caffeine-free tea before heading up to bed.

***

Cambion doesn't hate Mondays any more or less than any other day, as Mondays are no different to someone who doesn't work for a living. Indolent bastard that he is. Still, he does get up reasonably early, and usually finds himself people-watching in the Mocha around the sort of time that most people are heading for work. He was there today, drinking hot chocolate and eating a piece of fudge cake. Who said breakfast had to be healthy?

***

Sasha had decided that it was time that little Morgan was introduced to some of the tenants, so she and the baby were tucked away on a sofa at the back of the Mocha. Morgan was snuggled up in a white crocheted blanket, only the top of her fluffy dark head showing, and occasionally one waving fist.

The next afternoon, Sasha and Manny anxiously awaited the results of the tests. Manny, of course, was convinced that nothing was wrong. Sasha was not so sure - she wanted their baby to be perfectly fine - but something (she knew all too well what) told her that was not to be.

Manny was chatting, talking about people, and how happy his mother was, utterly denying the possibility that anything could be wrong, when the door opened, and a nurse pushed in the baby. Dr. Sandberg followed, with a clipboard, and the nurse left.

"Good afternoon," the doctor said, apprehension in her voice.

( and so it begins. . . )

It was a little daughter, and it was all over finally, and life was promising to be perfect. Maude had been and gone, and smiled when they told her the little one would be Nastasia -- no more M. Temminck!

( Read more... )

Sasha and her bump were draped across the sofa in the Temminck living room, grumpily reading a magazine. The large mirror above the fireplace was draped - tastefully, it almost looked like a statement of some kind, but draped nonetheless - in dark gold velvet. Every now and then, she'd look up at the mirror and frown. For all her talents, she'd been unable to figure anything out about what was up with the mirrors, and it bothered her.