Page 64 of Totally Shipped
“I think I’ll need some more of this therapy tomorrow,” comes the answer.
Good reply, my man.
Maybe MARCH?
LEANDER
Daisy guesses she will give birth in about seven weeks.
Things are going to get real, real soon.
I get up to put more wood on the fire and nearly fall over. “Whoa, turned into Gray there for a minute?”
It’s odd, but I have started getting dizzy spells. I didn’t want to mention it to anyone, especially Daisy, because she’d just worry. But when I nearly fall in the fire, it’s pretty obvious.
“Me too,” says Key, unexpectedly. “When I stand up, everything goes swirly.”
For a moment everyone is silent, then Rex asks if anyone else has been experiencing dizziness.
“Duh,” says Gray.
“A little,” Killian answers.
“A lot,” Daisy says.
“DAISY! Why haven’t you told us?”
“Leave it, Leander,” Rex growls. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about, and that’s our nutrition, or lack of it. Because our diet is so limited, we have to be short on various minerals and things. I think the dizziness is to do with that. Look at our dry skin, our fingernails. My hair has gotten super thin. That’s all signs of malnutrition.”
Fuck. That has to be extra bad for Daisy; she’s trying to make a baby without enough fuel.
The odds of this baby surviving are already not the best. We don’t talk about it, but we all think about it.
“We can eat more calories,” Rex says, “but I don’t think that’s good enough. We have to vary our diet, or we could get really sick.”
“Alright,” Killian stands up and starts pacing around. “We vary our diet then, we’ve got too complacent on what we are eating. For example, we’ve all stopped eating seaweed, because none of us really like it, but we start that again.”
“We found the breadfruit by pure accident,” Gray adds. “Who knows what other stuff is out there that we haven’t found yet.”
In the background we can hear the clucking of the chickens. No one voices what must be our collective thought.
“Uncle Rex?”
“Yes, noodle?”
“Is mal-mal—what did you call it?”
“Malnutrition.”
“Yeah, that. Is it bad for our baby?”
I love how Keyara refers to the bump as ‘our’ baby.
“Well, we have to be mindful to make sure Daisy has the right food,” Rex says eventually, pulling Key into a hug.
“Then,” she says in a small voice, “I think we need to cook a chicken for Daisy.”
“Honey, no…” Daisy is instantly on her feet. “You love those chickens.”
