My Father's Beta

The Ugly Tree?

Beth

I didn’t sleep much that night, I was too busy thinking about Mason and Lily and my grand plan that seemed so hugely flawed once the sun had set. I’m not sure if it’s this particular case or because it’s my first, even if it will be this way every time, but now I’ve honed in on one I can’t stop channelling their feelings, grief and loss and sickly despair that made my stomach nauseous.

When the sun rose through the window I got up out of bed and pulled on Jim’s shirt from last night and headed down stairs, curling up in a little ball in the armchair that faced the glass wall. Seeing the woods outside calmed me and it made me want to shift into my wolf to enhance the effect. I was worried though that it was still too dangerous with Jim, and then I wouldn’t be able to think straight if I was in wolf form either.

Which wouldn’t be helpful to me since I have so much to think about now, like my conversation last night with Jim about kids. I guess I wasn’t exactly surprised that he asked about it, from the beginning he made it clear that he was in it for the whole package.

To be honest though, I know that I told him I can’t have kids because of the training and fighting and that’s all true but, it’s also true that I’ve got a few years before Dad steps down and I know he wouldn’t push me to do it if I wanted a baby, the thing is, I’m not sure that I do, at least not yet.

I love Jim and I want a family with him someday, just not right now and I know that it’s selfish of me considering how far apart our biological clocks are but I just don’t feel ready, it kind of scares me to picture myself as a Mother, a real one – everyone knows there’s way more to being a Mom than just having the baby, it’s a whole life commitment.

Some people, like Jim I guess – grow up knowing that they want a big family and they go through life searching for the person that they want that with, some people don’t even think about it and then they have a baby and can’t imagine doing anything different, some people have doubts and then as soon as they hold their baby the doubts just fade away, but I don’t want to chance it. What if I have a baby and hope that everything will fall into place only for the moment to come and I’m holding a tiny person in my arms that I brought into the world and feel nothing for it?

I couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair on the baby or on Jim. I want to make him happy and I’m hoping that some more time of being together as we are will assure me that a family is what I want, that it’ll be me asking Jim about us having kids the next time.

I’m not sure where my reluctance is coming from... maybe my ideals from being in the human world are still too strong, maybe I’m just not a maternal person – the trouble is I know that that’s not true. I love babies, they’re adorable and fascinating and I can’t resist holding one if I get the chance, and then there’s how I always seemed to be the Mother figure in my group of friends, if something was wrong they would always come to me.

Maybe it’s something as simple as I feel too young to be a Mom, that a Mom in my mind is someone who has lived already, whose experiences are kept and remembered to help her children when they need it even if they don’t know they need it themselves.

I mean what can I offer a child in way of experience? What can I give them to face the world with? I was lucky, I had two parents who were born to be just that, parents. I can’t expect Jim to do all the work and I wouldn’t want him to, but I don’t want to be useless either. If I have a baby, I want it to grow up knowing that they have me no matter what, that they can always come to me with anything but what if they don’t want to? What if they think I’m useless?

I don’t know, I think time will be my best bet. I’ve spent my whole life being shoved from pillar to post because it’s what someone else wanted for me – when I was a kid I’d go between my parents and grandparents, even some friend's parents, then I got shipped away for eight years into a place so annoyingly safe and regimented that nothing truly interesting has ever happened to me. I haven’t done anything resembling life except meeting Jim and that was by accident, I’ve never done anything because it’s what I wanted, it was always for someone else or by a twist of fate.