DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

by young Native American artists, but it was in Mother Felice’s bedroom that she was most comfortable. Cluttered with lace and flowers, antiques and needlework, a shiny brass bed in its center, the room was crowded and at the same time light, airy. It was a friendly room, and it suited her favorite mother perfectly.

Mother Janine’s bedroom had no furniture at all, only a bare mattress centered on the red tile floor. The undecorated walls were painted a deep, unreflective black.

She had never liked going into Mother Janine’s room.

She reached her own bedroom and threw her books on the bed. Grabbing her journal and pen from the dresser, she went back downstairs, walking through the library and opening the sliding glass door to the Garden. Or what her mothers called the Garden. To her it had always been much more than a garden. To her it was a sanctuary, a refuge, a place where she could come to relax and to think and to be alone. Her mothers seemed to recognize her feelings and to appreciate her kinship with the location.

The Garden had originally been the place where in the summer they read or sunbathed or just lounged around, but over the years their involvement with the area had become less, their visits more infrequent.

It was as though they had tacitly agreed that the Garden was her domain and not theirs, and gradually they relinquished their control to her.

For this she was grateful.

She glanced around the walled yard. In the center of the quadrangle was a fountain, an exact replication of a Hellenic fountain discovered in the ruined courtyard of an old villa by Mother Margaret on one of her trips to Greece. Spreading outward from the fountain like spokes in a wheel were Mother Sheila’s medicinal herbs and rare flowering shrubs, the even rows of greenery subdivided by the purposeful placement of various Old World archaeological artifacts and folk sculpture purchased by her mothers over the years. There were several benches within the Garden, but Penelope had always preferred sitting on the edge of the fountain, listening firsthand to the burble of the water, feeling the spray of light mist against the skin of her hands and face.

Although she hadn’t said anything to Mother Felice and probably wouldn’t, the question of her mothers’ sexual preference had come up again today at school. Last year she had nearly been suspended after fighting with Susan Holman, who had called the product produced by their vineyards “Lezzie Label Wine.” She and Susan had no classes together this year, but in the hall after lunch she had heard Susan loudly say something about “the Dyke Factory” while her tough blue-jeaned cronies laughed hysterically. She had ignored the remark, continuing on to class as though she hadn’t heard. But she had heard. And it hurt.

It always hurt.

What made her feel worse was that she wondered herself sometimes if any of her mothers were lesbians. That had been the rumor around town for years, and it was not beyond the realm of possibility. Each of her mothers went out periodically on dates, but for all she knew that could have been a cover-up, merely an attempt to maintain respectability for the sake of the business. There were no serious men in any of their lives, and there never had been, at least not in her lifetime.

Besides, her mothers were… well, weird. She hated to admit it, but they not only seemed peculiar to outsiders. They often seemed strange even to her.

Particularly Mother Janine.

Of course, if that was the case, if they were lesbians, one of them had to be bisexual. Or had to at least have done it once with a man.

Unless she had been adopted.

No, she was not adopted. Of that she was certain.

She sat down, dipping her fingers into the cool water of the fountain pool. She called them all “mother,” but she knew that, really, she had only one female parent. She had a pretty good idea of who her biological mother was too. It was something all of them denied when she put it to them, confronted them with it. They all handed her the same line, saying that traditional one-on-one relationships, such as those usually associated with parents and siblings, were ultimately limiting and were not to be established or recognized within this household. They told her she must always treat each mother equally. But she noticed that they did not all treat her equally. Some were kinder to her than others, some were more open and honest with her than others, and so she was closer to some than others.

She felt closest to Mother Felice, and it was Mother Felice whom she believed to be her true mother, her biological mother. The reasons were vague, more feelings than thoughts, but they were consistent and always had been. It was Mother Felice who throughout the years had seemed most concerned with both her physical welfare and her emotional well-being.

Like today. It had been Mother Felice who had stayed in the house to wait for her. The apron and the pantry routine hadn’t fooled her at all.

Her mother was here instead of at the winery because she wanted to know how her first day in school had gone.

That made her feel good.

Sometimes she wished that Mother Felice was her only mother.

She looked down into the water, seeing in the shimmering a distorted reflection of her face. She was pretty, she knew, and she liked looking at herself, though she was by no means obsessive about it. She had never been one to spend excessive amounts of time on makeup or hair care, but if she passed a mirror she invariably looked into it. She found it reassuring to see her own reflection, to know what she looked like, although it always embarrassed her if someone caught her at it.

Sometimes she wondered if she herself was homosexual. It was not inconceivable. Growing up in an all-female environment, it might even be expected.