"I'm sorry, I'm so tired," Mary stared at the egg wash on the floor, Anne looked at her in confusion, and crouched down to try to retrieve the eggs back into the carton that hadn't been completely broken - Mary grabbed her, "I'm so tired......" she repeated, "let it go, leave this alone." ”

"But...... Mary......"

"I said don't do it!" The sudden increase in her voice not only made Anne's eyes widen in surprise, but even Mary was startled by herself: "...... Okay, I said don't get it. She lowered her voice, her fingers straining slightly, "I'll take care of it, you go back to your room now." She paused, realizing that her tone and diction were still hovering between cold and irritable. That's not right, Mary said to herself, you have been with this child for more than a year, she is smart, beautiful, obedient and sensible, her miserable background is sympathetic, you know her, you know her, you should not start to suspect poor Anne just because a new neighbor and a new teacher who have only met once or twice said strange things to you?! - Perhaps, as she had thought, the spices and spinach juice that Anne recommended to her were nothing more than a coincidence. The child was precocious, but her knowledge could only come from the Internet and the library for the time being, and she was probably ignorant of the harm these two foods could cause (their benefits had always been widely circulated) - after all, even Mary didn't know before today that spices and spinach were harmful to pregnant women - and in any case, their names never appeared on the doctor's list of foods to be avoided.

Anne looked a little confused, but as she had done every time, she obeyed without objection.

Mary watched Anne walk out of the kitchen, and now she had to pick up the mess on the floor with a big and hard belly, which was not easy, the egg was a strange thing, it was hard to clean, and the remnants would soon emit a foul stench that attracted flies and cockroaches. It took her half an hour to get the kitchen floor to stop feeling slimy, and when she had put everything else in the refrigerator, glass jar, or cabinet, and put them in place, she found that her back and waist were cold and hard like a marble statue—she clutched the dismantled wrapping paper in her hand, and slowly returned to the kitchen table, sitting upright in her chair. If it was usual, she would have asked Anne to rub her shoulders for herself, but today Mary didn't think of this at all, her mind was a mess, and she needed to tidy it up...... She even wanted to call her husband, who was thousands of miles away, she had never missed him so much, she needed him by her side...... But after all, it was just a thought, because Mr. Kent would be home tomorrow night, and he would take four weeks of paid maternity leave from that day.

"Come back soon," she said in her heart, "Come back quickly." ”

As she herself said, she was so tired that even sitting in the cold kitchen, on the hard chair, her whole body, from her eyelids to her fingers, was still falling...... She was almost asleep, but a slight but abrupt tugging movement woke her out of the chaos, and in the dim light of the kitchen, Anne's amber eyes glittered like gold, and tiny fingers were bent into Mary's palm. Instinctively, Mary first retracted her fingers, and the uneven touch in her palm reminded her, and she raised her hand, only to find that the wrapping paper she thought had been thrown into the trash was still tightly held in her hand. It took a few more seconds for her to realize that Anne was trying to help her get rid of the trash.

"Thank you." She said.

Anne happily accepted the little task, and when she was done, she ran to the sink to wash her hands and dry them, and Mary heard her shoes rattling on the floor tiles, and she walked behind Mary, who had two small hands on her shoulder sockets, and the little hands were damp and a little cold.

Mary's body tensed, and she controlled herself not to run away, which was stupid, but she couldn't contain the inexplicable doubts and worries...... No matter how attentive the little hands were, her body could not relax, and Anne seemed to be aware of it, she stopped, and then stretched her two white arms over Mary's shoulders, and the child's tender, smooth, milky cheeks pressed against Mary's neck from behind, and the heat from which she spoke swept across Mary's sideburns.

"What are we going to give the kitten?" She asked.

"Ball of yarn." Mary replied dryly.

"What are we going to give the puppy?"

"Meat bones and walks."

"What are we going to give the little boy?"

"Slingshots and frogs."

"What are we going to give the little girl?"

"Countless kisses and sweet hugs."

Anne spun out from behind her chair, carefully leaning sideways so as not to weigh on Mary's stomach, she was asking for a reward - Mary hesitated for a moment, stretched out her arm, and hugged her.

It was a little game that used to please Mary, and Dolores, who was more like a little boy in temperament, never played with her dolls or this "sour" (Dolores) wordplay until Anne appeared in the house—the heads of the adoptive mother and daughter rubbed against each other, and Mary closed her eyes, and she still vividly remembered the first time she hugged and kissed the child, it was like holding a huge, warm, sweet, never-melting marshmallow in her mouth. She wanted to regain that feeling, only to find that she couldn't do anything about it.

"Where's Dolores?"

Anne's body shook slightly: "She's out," she left her adoptive mother's arms, sweet as usual: "I saw her go out in roller skates, she should be nearby, do you want me to call her?" ”

***

About ten o'clock at six o'clock, Mary was awakened by a wave of stubborn swelling pain, and she squinted her dry eyes and grabbed the electronic clock on the bedside table, looked at it, cursed, and got up from the bed with difficulty.

She didn't wear the kind of special pajamas for pregnant women, so she moved into the bathroom naked/naked step by step, she didn't turn on the light, she groped her way to the toilet with her eyes almost closed, and then threw her bloated body directly onto the toilet seat that was said to be silk - the advantage of not having a male in the house was probably that, she didn't have to remember to put down the toilet seat at such a time - she sat on it, holding her stomach in her hands, legs apart, waiting quietly in the dark...... But she couldn't wait for anything but the pain was stronger than once, Mary. Kent felt extremely tired, she longed to go back to sleep, but the damned "desire" wouldn't allow her to walk away like this, it repeatedly crushed her rectum, wandering happily inside, occasionally showing her head at the "door", but refusing to come down.

Mary didn't know how long she had been waiting...... Or how long have you been tortured...... When the first hot solid fell from her body, she almost shouted "Thank God".

Once she had begun, she couldn't stop, and Mary was horrified to discover that there was nothing but the ...... she desperately needed to abandon There was also a large amount of warm liquid gushing out from between his legs.

She struggled desperately to her feet, turned on the bathroom overhead light, Mary lowered her head, her huge belly made it impossible for her to figure out between her legs, but she could feel something running down her legs, where she stood with trembling legs, the transparent, shiny liquid was rapidly forming a flat circle.

The egg broke.

***

Once Anthony. Dr. Hopkins, now Claude. Mr. Striff vs. Mary. The news of Kent's advance due date was not at all surprising.

In fact, he even had a good deal with Mary. Kent was a little curious, a healthy woman who was a little over-the-top, and he determined that for six months in a row, nearly two dozen spices, mainly spice-spiced, meal-a-day meals and gallons of spinach juice did nothing significant to her—at least on the surface, if he remained silent. Or to be more precise, if Anne. Kent was sensible enough from the beginning not to play tricks on her clever words, and he was more than happy to be a silent bystander—misfortune was everywhere and everybody, and there were quite a few Marys. Kent this one.

He and Sasha loved it, they didn't like the idea of making a fuss or making any undue noise, and if possible, the Stryffs would live in the 19th for at least four years.

The news was told to the doctor by Mrs. Borough, who had to rush to Kent's house to look after Anne and Dolores so that Mr. Kent, who was returning from Harrington, D.C., thousands of miles away, could go straight to the hospital, but she happened to have an urgent report about St. Thomas's summer Latin course that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible—and now had to be forwarded to Striff, who was in charge of the summer school.

According to Mrs. Borow, Mary. Kent's condition was not very good, she seemed to faint for a while after the amniotic sac ruptured due to nervousness or some other reason, there was no one else around at the time, and by the time she came to her senses and called for help, the amniotic fluid had almost been lost, so although she was thirty-seven weeks old, the doctor still decided to perform a caesarean section on her behalf.

At about eleven o'clock in the morning, the doctor had finished the urgent business of the Latin class, and Mrs. Borough called again, and the follow-up to the matter might need to be taken over by Streiff.

Mary's child had been identified as suffering from hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, some of his face, finger deformities, and a number of other suspicious conditions that required detailed examination to find out - mostly negative, and Mary had not yet woken up, and Mr. Kent, who had learned the bad news, called and did not want Anne and Dolores to come to the hospital, so Mrs. Borough had to stay at the Kent house.

Mr. Stryff put down the phone, emailed another teacher at the summer Latin class to make a time and place for the meeting, and then took a straw basket and walked into the grove that surrounded the house.

He did not touch the garden attached to the house except for the necessary pruning and weeding, but in the grove around him he carved out a long strip of flat land in which he planted many of his favorite plants, a large part of which were edible.

Parsley, fennel, mint, rosemary, basil...... As Leonardo. Diesel. Del piero. Reach. What Vinci describes: peas are perfect for cooking with herbs in a variety of dishes, cheese, sugar and cinnamon bark, rice with a layer of fresh "butiro" cheese, duck breast and goose slices is rich and delicious, red chickpea chowder with sage, rosemary and chopped parsley root is always just right, and sour juices from unripe and slightly sour grapes go well with them. A white marzipan tart is the finishing touch to the whole dish – a genuine delicacy that dates straight back to the 15th century in Florence.

"Unexpected abundance," said Sasha, happily seated at the table, his appetite now getting better and his father's craftsmanship more and more sophisticated, "what is there to celebrate?" ”

"It's not a celebration to celebrate, it's good news," Striff scooped a spoonful of rice into the sand from a nice silver plate, "but I guess," he said, staring at a slice of duck breast, "the whole thing is just the beginning." ”

(To be continued)