Seeds of Plenty by Jennifer Juo Page A

imagined the snake spirits hidden in the long grass, waiting to turn Lila into her snake-spirit form. Deep down, she knew partly why her baby girl still held onto her spirit lifeline.
    Winston came home that evening, and Lila suddenly crawled for the first time, it was a hybrid crawl, a kind of hop on all fours. She reached Winston’s legs, her arms climbing up his legs. But he brushed her off, like she was pest of some sort. “My pants are too dirty, pick her up Sylvia,” he said. Sylvia felt Lila’s pain like it was her own.
    It reminded her of the overt way her own father had preferred her brothers while her mother pined for her dead sister. Sylvia was the forgotten daughter. She remembered feeling jealous when her father began taking her brothers swimming, coaching them after school. They all came home smelling of chlorine just like her father. At her father’s request, their cook served the largest pieces of beef to her brothers, stuffing them so they would grow strong. At the dinner table, she was often neglected as the conversation revolved around swim races that didn’t involve her. She looked to her mother for camaraderie, but after her sister’s death, her mother never quite recovered mentally or emotionally. Her mother spent most evenings in her room with a migraine and rarely joined them for dinner.
    Sylvia didn’t want Lila to be stunted by this lack of parental love. She knew that Winston’s interaction or rather non-interaction with Lila had something to do with her holding onto the spirit world. Her daughter could sense this rejection, even though she was only a baby. She hugged her daughter tightly and kissed her cheek to compensate. As Sylvia held her child, she worried, but would her love be enough? Would it be enough to anchor her child to this world?
    ***
     
    Later that evening, she knocked on her husband’s study door.
    “Come in,” he said.
    She opened the door, but he did not look up. He was sitting at his desk, poring over tiny rocks full of purple, sandy brown, and green hues. The glass case of his rock collection was open. He was gluing the new rocks into the case, classifying each one and writing its name neatly on the labels under the rocks. The labels had words like Kalsilitic leucite , not names of rocks she recognized.
    “Dinner’s ready,” she said, feeling like she was intruding somehow. She wanted to say something about Lila, but she didn’t know how to begin. He was not her real father and he had generously taken her on. Could she really expect more?
    He came out of his study and went into the kitchen. She watched him soap and scrub his hands thoroughly as if his rocks had been full of germs. He was a neat man, almost too hygienic. He was always washing his hands.
    As they ate dinner, she felt him glance at her, almost furtively. That night, after dinner, Sylvia undid her silk robe. Winston was already in bed with his back turned to her. Most nights, Lila’s crying bothered Winston, so he got up and moved to the spare bedroom, leaving Sylvia alone even when he was home. Sylvia climbed into bed and pressed her naked body against Winston’s back, trying to keep him near. He turned to her and lay on top of her, pushing into her. He was certainly eager, and this gave her hope at first. But after he was done, he simply rolled off and fell asleep, snoring in matter of minutes. Sex to Winston was like eating or drinking, he needed it to nourish himself like the next man, but he was not a romantic. He did not whisper tender words in her ear or hold her close afterward, and this made her feel more desolate.
     
     

Chapter 10
    She recognized the tightening at the center of her abdomen as the fertilized egg settled into her uterus. This time, she didn’t feel despair but instead a kind of hope. She would give Winston a baby that was all his, a son to cement their relationship. It was her chance to make her marriage and family life work. She pushed thoughts of Ayo to the far corner