Extra Chapter: Work Hard and You Won’t Think Weird Things

My youngest son is a bit frightening of a child. He could walk and talk before he was one-year-old. He didn’t cry as much as a child usually does. He also didn’t sleep as much. During his first year anniversary he seemed to be listening attentively to the adults talking. The only thing he does like any baby is to suck my breast.

Mother says I didn’t care for the talks of adults until I myself was already past fifteen.

Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with my son. John don’t seem to think he is different, but a child who can differentiate bigfoot roots and pine bushes at his age isn’t common.

Mother said Al is different, but in a good sense. I cannot understand mother. Didn’t we have so much problem because we were different?

It took a long time for people to get used to her appearance, and the elders of the village still look at her with suspicion. My own friends have started to look at me with bad eyes, saying things like “you are really lucky you don’t age, I wish I was like you”.

If you really mean that, then why do you look so angry when you say it?

When I was young I was friends with everyone and everyone liked me. Now many of them are mad with me because I don’t age. Some of my childhood friends even accused me of trying to seduce their husbands away.

When truth is that those idiots keep trying to grope me or have me sleep with them. Why did they grow up to become such warts? I am lucky I married John, or something bad would have happened with me one of these days.

I do not trust any man in this village anymore. Not after having to remind them so many times who I am married with. Who is my husband and what he would do if they try anything funny.

All of this because I am different. So how could it be Al being different is a good thing?

Well, Al is a boy, so maybe he won’t have this much problem. I guess boys don’t worry if girls want them. Even if they get rough. It is only people like me who have to worry about rough men.

The water is running low.

“Ann! Why haven’t you filled the barrel today?!”

Ann is my oldest daughter. She is 11 this year.

“Sorry ma! I will do it now!”

“Hurry up them! The barrel is empty and I have to make your brother’s soup!”

“Going!”

There she goes. Six buckets in a stick. Three on each side, each of them really heavy. With just that she will be able to fill the barrel in two trips, less than one hour of work.

At her age I could barely lift one at a time. Filling the barrel was the work of a whole day for me, and in the next day it would be empty again. No wonder mother put me to do housework instead. I was better at sewing and cooking than doing this kind of heavy stuff. So were most of my friends.

My daughter is also different.

But I don’t worry much about her. Mother may have taught her weird things, but that is because she wanted to learn them.

My daughter won’t have to worry with rough drunk men. When I think like that, I feel a bit proud of her.

Still, I wonder if she will find a good husband. I have heard woman who do too much exercise don’t get pregnant easy. Also, many men don’t like woman who are too strong.

Even if she is getting to that age already, none of my friends even think twice about her being married to one of their sons. Even when I say that joking they just change the subject with wry smiles.

Is she really going to be okay?

I hear crying.

This one is Jacen.

“Son? What happened?”

He is running towards me with his cute steps.

“Ma! Ma!”

“It’s ok, it’s ok. Tell ma what happened”

“snif. Ma! Ma!”

“Ch, ch, it’s ok. It’s ok. Ma is here, Ma ain’t going nowhere”.

He is just lonely. He has been like that for a while now. My friends say it is normal for young kids who just had their younger brothers born. They get like this.

There, he is calming down.

“Now, tell me what happened”

He tucked to my apron strings. This is no good.

“Jacen, you are almost five already. Let go of mother’s skirt.”

“Ma!”

His eyes are all teary again.

“Here. You want to stay close, then help Ma with drying the dishes, ok?”

“uhm.”

I put him seated in the stool right next to Al. Having two stools in the kitchen. Usually it is one for the wife and one for the husband, so they can have tea together without having to seat at the table. Now it is for my two sons to stay close to their mother.

Well, it is just one year until Jacen is five and Al is three. Then me and John will have our room back to us. Until them we just have to endure it.

There is a muffled sound to my right.

“Jacen, stop poking your brother! You know this bothers him!”

What am I to do with this son of mine who won’t cry even when his brother pokes him…?