Chapter 4: Willow

The next Sunday was time for their monthly trip down country to see Larissa’s mum. Larissa was still finding these trips a bit emotionally draining, so they’d fallen into a pattern for the trips: they’d leave the family home after lunch, and make the drive to the town where her mum lived. Somewhere along the way, they’d find a park to stop at, and either chill for a couple of hours, cuddling and making out, or walk and talk, or, now that it was really winter, they’d try out various little portable fires, research for a future Youtube episode on whether wood fires were a good source of energy or not. Whatever they did, they focused on getting Larissa into the best frame of mind she could find. Then, once they got to the town, they’d drop in and visit one of Larissa’s friends from high school who still lived at home, and then they’d go meet her mum and her lovers for dinner, before leaving mid-evening to get home in time to prepare for the coming week.

The best bit was visiting her friends; most of the girls who’d stayed behind were settled with a guy and banging out kids, though not always in that order. One of her friends, who’d been pregnant at school, she had three now, and said she was done, and starting to plan how to finish her education, since it had stopped long before she left school; before she even got pregnant, really. They visited her this trip, and she caught Larissa up on all the gossip, while Julian played in the yard with her current guy, and her two sons aged five and three. The gossip mostly concerned the other kids they went to school with, and her friend’s family. Most of it wasn’t that interesting to Larissa, except for the bit about her mum: that was very interesting indeed. Her friend understood too, taking it gently and letting Larissa process it and ask questions, though mostly she didn’t know the answers.

In some ways it wasn’t a surprise. When her mum had told her that she was moving in with her lovers, and that they’d decided they weren’t going to keep it a secret, she’d figured that she’d hear about it from her friends. What she hadn’t known was exactly who the lovers were; her mum had only given them first names, and when she’d met them so far, she hadn’t asked anything about their jobs and so forth. She’d been more interested in getting to know them personally. And that meant that she’d missed a rather significant fact: her mum’s lovers were extremely wealthy and very well known in the local community. And this night, she was going to meet their kids and see their home. She figured that she’d know the kids, but she hadn’t recognised their names.

The gossip didn’t disappoint either; the story was that her mum was their live-in sex-slave, and they’d loaned her out to some other couples as a party favour. Not surprisingly, details were slim. All the gossip said was that it had happened, though apparently her mum had been seen out around the town in some quite revealing outfits.

Larissa wasn’t sure what to make of this. She’d grown up in this town, and she knew exactly how it worked; one overheard joke from someone who mightn’t know anything, and bingo! Now it was a true story, and every telling embellished it more. And revealing outfits ... yeah, she knew how that worked; how people wanted to turn your comfort with yourself against you. And her mum was in a threesome; people would feel free to make up whatever made sense to them. So it was quite possible that this was all imaginary. But it was also possible that it was at least partially true. And if it was, then there was the question of respect; she understood from her experiences that this stuff could be fun, but it was only sustainably fun if all three of them respected each other.

So, gossip ... whatever. But Larissa also remembered Sal’s sad grimace when she’d asked about her mum; Sal wouldn’t say much except that her mum had stopped working with Sal before Sal thought that it was time. Larissa had been alert since then, but so far she’d just seen a happy threesome. Was that a front? Would meeting their kids change things? Well, the only thing that mattered was that her mum was happy, and sustainably so.

Once that thin bit of gossip had been dealt with, they moved on to her friend’s own news, while she breastfed her daughter – the daughter’s dad, her current guy, was maybe the right one, finally. Or maybe, Larissa knew, her friend was ready to think about being realistic, instead of ploughing through the guys trying to find a white knight that couldn’t exist. Three kids to three different fathers; her friend wasn’t going to have an easy life.

All too soon it was time, and they drove around to her mum’s lovers’ place – a huge mansion on the outskirts of the town. It was a very nice house, sure. But were they very nice people? All Larissa knew was that Bob and Mary had been polite to her when they’d met at restaurants before, though not warm, and her mum looked at happy and settled. At least this time, they’d actually remembered that Larissa and Julian didn’t drink, and they had some non-alcoholic drinks ready for them as they introduced her to their own kids, Matt and Isabella. Right away Larissa knew it was going to be a difficult evening. She should’ve recognised who they were beforehand. Hell, she should’ve just known immediately – how well she’d managed to forget school!

Matt had been a year ahead of her in school, and he’d been captain of the cricket and footy teams, and generally the big guy on campus. And to go with that, he’d been very suave with the girls, cutting a big swathe through them. Not Larissa though, and not because she wouldn’t have either, or he hadn’t been interested, but because she’d been with Ian. Now he had a beautiful girl, Ella, hanging on his every word; probably another Ruby like arrangement, but at least the guy had real money, already working in middle management in the retail stores the family owned. Isabella had been a year behind Larissa, and Larissa had known her for an arrogant self-absorbed little ass, obsessed with her status, and otherwise, not good for much. And it sure didn’t look like anything had changed; she still looked over-presented. Would she pop if someone pricked her with a pin?

Straightaway, they were both trying to rub their wealth and success into her nose, their disrespect of her was obvious. And it was getting to her; she didn’t want to be playing this game, but it didn’t seem like she had any choice. It certainly wasn’t putting her in a good place.

After a few minutes, Julian asked her if she remembered where the toilet was, and could she show him? Once there, he said quietly to her, “I can see they’re getting to you. But just think, what have they done since school? and what have you done? Anything they have, they didn’t earn. You’re so much better than them, and it’s all yours. How long do you think all this will last once the son takes over the business?” Larissa giggled, and gave him a kiss in thanks. Yeah, he was right, they had money right now, but they were learning all the wrong lessons.

When she went back out, she played their game in reverse. Sure, let them be vacuous and look down on her – why should she care? She gently pulled them along, asking for them to tell her how much greater their lives were than hers. Julian came back, shocked that it was still happening, so she grinned at him, and poked him – game on! Then she realised that Bob and Mary were pretty upset with their kids, and her mum was unhappy about it too, so she backed off and changed the subject to their animals – their hobby farm had a mix of animals down the back, enough that there were always problems, a never-ending stream of them, and they were sick of it; another problem even today, but they weren’t sure whether it was serious enough to get a vet in. Given that she was sort of a working vet, she offered to look at the sheep since it sounded like it was distressed, so they grabbed some torches and jackets and set out for the barn, while the cook finished getting dinner ready.

The sheep didn’t look good at all, a sudden change since the day before, they told her. Larissa thought she’d seen the problem before with Ruth, but surely they’d know about this? If she was right ... she ran through the differential diagnosis list she’d learnt at uni, but didn’t come up with any other likely possibility: it sure looked like nitrate poisoning. None of the other sheep had troubles, so she asked if this had gotten separated from the rest of their sheep, and had they heard of capeweed? Yes, it had, and they weren’t sure how it got into that particular field, and no, they hadn’t heard of capeweed. They showed her to the field it had gotten into, and then she searched it and quickly found a major growth of capeweed, and she could see in the torch light that the sheep had eaten plenty of it. She showed Bob and explained about capeweed poisoning. Mary didn’t believe her, she realised, but by the time Bob found where the fence was broken, she’d googled to confirm what Larissa said.