Chapter 16: Temporarily Lost
Adjusting to life in the cabin is hard at first, namely because the adrenaline and fear of being discovered or tracked down keeps us on edge the first few days. It's weird not waking up to the daily routine I've had for years—hunting, trading, making condoms, bartering in the Hob—or interacting with the minimal friends I've managed to make and keep. I know it's harder for Peeta, acclimating to a life out in the wild; he's a social person by nature, and I worry he'll get sick of me soon enough if I'm the only human interaction he has day in and day out; I can sense his anxiety after a while, so eventually I round up berries and other materials to make him color mixtures. He takes up painting and drawing to keep himself occupied in his downtime, when he's not helping me finish up the cabin and building furniture.
Gradually, he relaxes, grows more at ease in our new surroundings, and I do as well. Every day the paranoia of Peacekeepers busting into our cabin at any moment, or a hovercraft descending on the lake, eases. I can direct my attention and energy to finishing out my pregnancy and keeping the three of us fed and healthy.
I'm due in October or November sometime, the best Mother could figure. We'd made a plan to bring her out to the cabin the end of September just to be safe.
But I don't anticipate the painful contractions that wake me up one night. I've had some lesser, negligible contractions during my pregnancy, nothing to worry about, Mother assured me, but these are stronger. I lie in bed a while, breathing deeply and trying to suffer through them in silence; I'm not ready, we're not ready. I can't do this without my mother.
When the contractions haven't stopped for a couple hours, by dawn, I finally shake Peeta awake. "Peeta," I whisper fearfully; the sound of my voice stirs him immediately.
"What's wrong?" he asks groggily.
"I—I think I might be in labor. I don't know."
Alarm flashes across his face, visible even in the dark. "What? Are you sure?"
"I'm having contractions, and they hurt worse than any before. They haven't stopped." My mind races. "You need to go get my mother."
His eyebrows shoot up just as he sits up in bed. "What? Now? I can't—I can't just leave you out here in the woods while you're in labor—it'll take hours to get back!"
I inhale deeply through my nose as I feel another contraction hit, clenching my jaw tightly as I exhale. Maybe it's my maternal, natural healer instincts kicking in—but suddenly I feel calm, clear-headed. "It'll be okay. Labor takes hours, especially the first time. It could be days even. You have to get her though. I can't do this without her. Neither of us can."
Peeta looks conflicted, less than convinced. "But what if something happens? What if something goes wrong and you're alone?"
I look him firmly in the eye. "Then you need to leave right now. And hurry."
Groaning in resigned frustration, Peeta leaps out of bed and hastily gets dressed. Before he leaves the cabin, he grabs my hand between his and squeezes it. "Please, just hold on till we get back? I can't miss this. I can't let anything happen to you."
I smile at him. "I'll be here waiting," I joke weakly and pull him in for a kiss, and then he's gone, practically sprinting out the door.
Without him there, I can feel the terror bubbling just beneath my calm exterior, but I focus my energy on breathing deeply, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth when the contractions hit.
To my confusion, the contractions begin to subside, growing lesser and farther apart, and after another couple hours they stop entirely. I wait another hour after my last contraction before I finally accept I'm not actually in labor. I feel relieved but embarrassed that I sent Peeta off for nothing, and now Mother is going to have to trek through the woods for hours for nothing.
Now I have a new fear for our safety—Mother has never made the trip out to the cabin. What if something happens, or a Peacekeeper catches them?
I spend the rest of the morning pacing and cleaning the cabin, gorging on rolls and apples and leftover stew just to distract myself. The moment I hear the door open, I stand up out of the dining chair as fast as my rounded belly will let me—but it isn't as quickly as Peeta, who is on me in an instant.
"Katniss! Are you okay? Your mother's here—is the baby coming? Do you need to start pushing?"
His questions are all one string of words, and he has such a frantic, manic look in his eyes, his cheeks flushed from the exertion and, likely, excitement, I can't help but laugh.
"No, I—it was a false alarm," I say sheepishly, my eyes darting to my mother as she rushes through the open door at that moment. "I'm sorry. I thought I was in labor. The contractions hurt worse than before, but they stopped. I'm sorry I made you come all the way out—"
"It's fine," she interrupts. She already looks less harried than she did a second ago, and she sighs in relief, setting her supplies down.. "I'm here now, so I'll just stay until the baby comes. You're this far along, so those contractions could mean the real thing is coming. It doesn't make sense to leave when you could go into labor at any moment now."
"Thanks, Mom," I say, smiling gratefully, and she turns back to Peeta, who has slumped down in a chair, bent over the table. I bite down on my lip. "I'm sorry I worried you."
Sighing, he lifts his head up to look at me and shakes his head. "I'm just glad I didn't miss it."
Mother's prediction turns out to be true. Within a few days, I go into labor. The trickling liquid between my thighs from my ruptured amniotic sac accompanying the intense contractions makes it apparent almost immediately that this isn't another false alarm.
My labor continues well into the night and early the next morning; I writhe in pain as Mother continuously monitors for when I can start pushing. Peeta either lays beside me, squeezing my hand or stroking my sweaty forehead in encouragement and comfort, or races around the cabin to get me and Mother whatever we need.
Finally, Mother gives me the go-ahead to start pushing, and after what could have been a few minutes or a lifetime of grunts and cries and the most excruciating pain I've ever felt, Mother is cradling a squalling tiny pink baby in her arms. She looks at Peeta and me, her eyes shining, and she gasps happily, "It's a girl."
I'm in a daze, barely registering the choked sob from Peeta beside me. The pain, and accompanying ecstasy that rushes in to fill the space once the immediate pain vanishes, leaves me in a dreamlike state, and all I can do is stare at the tiny mass of limbs and black tufts of hair while Mother hastily cuts the umbilical cord and cleans her off. Peeta kisses my temple, and I blindly grope for his arm, too afraid to take my eyes off our daughter.
"Peeta," I croak out weakly as Mother brings the baby back to us. "We—we have a daughter. She's here." Mother gently places her on my chest, instructing me how to hold the baby, and both of us stare at her in awe. "She's beautiful."
Peeta laughs softly, the sound thick with tears, and he ever so tenderly palms our daughter's head. "I guess we did pretty good."
"What should we name her?" I ask quietly, staring into the deep blue eyes that peer up at me, somehow both wide with wonderment and squinted with disgruntlement. I want to weep from joy and exhaustion.
Peeta gazes at our daughter, trailing his fingers very delicately over her features and down her arm to touch her wrinkly fingers. "What about Wren, like we talked about?" he suggests, referencing one of the names we'd volleyed around when we'd first started discussing names.
I consider it, silently rolling the name around on my tongue. Then I smile, my eyes beginning to water. "Welcome home, Wren," I whisper. "You're safe now."
Mother stays with us for a few weeks, helping Peeta and me adjust to being parents and making sure there are no complications with her daughter or granddaughter. It takes a while for me to heal, but luckily we'd stocked up on enough meat prior to my labor that we have enough to last us for a while, until I'm cleared for hunting again. And we aren't in danger of running out of flour anytime soon, so Peeta is content to bake as much bread and treats as I desire. And with Wren breastfeeding, I desire a lot.
Once Mother determines me and baby Wren will be fine without her assistance, Peeta helps her get back to the Seam; she needs to get back before the first snow of the season, which would make traversing the woods more treacherous for two inexperienced trackers as themselves.
The first few months of Wren's life are hard, mainly on Peeta and I. In addition to the sleepless nights and the demands of a fussy newborn, there is the lingering fear of being found and punished, of having our baby ripped away from us by the Capitol that still permeates our existences. But every day it feels less and less likely that someone will find them, and when winter finally hits, shrouding us in mountains of snow and a sense of security, we can relax.
I begin hunting again in the winter, tracking down the few animals not in hibernation to keep us fed through the coming months. We're grateful for Wren's mostly good health so we don't have to go back to Twelve for a while, until spring arrives, and one of us will covertly visit Mother to pick up any food or supplies she has procured for us. Peeta continues to bake and build whatever new furnishings we need, especially with the baby. Taking care of a child alone in the woods is complicated and tenuous, but I had learned how to do it with Prim, and with a lot less to work with, so Peeta, Wren and I make do.
Overall, it's a content life, filled with countless moments of happiness and dwindling days of fear and worry. Years pass, and Wren grows older. She's a healthy, happy child, with long raven locks and big blue eyes. She loves singing with me and fingerpainting with Daddy. When she's 4, I begin to teach her how to hunt, taking her out in the woods on my regular excursions to procure fresh game or harvest vegetables and fruits. I don't take Wren anywhere near District 12, however, just to be safe. Anytime Peeta or I make the trip to Twelve for provisions, and Wren gets pouty, demanding where we've been, we just tell her we had to go somewhere that wasn't safe for little girls like her to go.
It's a late fall day when it happens. I set out early in the morning to make the trek into Twelve, to pick up some routine medical supplies from Mother. I'm lost in my thoughts about Wren and Peeta, who are back at the cabin, probably beginning the process of making an elaborate lunch for us to share once I return, that I almost miss the telltale sign: a barely perceptible humming.
Yanking my hands back from the fence, I freeze as I stare at the fence. It's a sound I haven't heard in years; the electricity has been turned on. Startled, I dart behind a nearby tree to hide, just in case any Peacekeepers are nearby. I clamp my hands over my mouth to muffle my labored breathing. Are they looking for us? Do they suspect Peeta and I are out in the woods? Have they found us out?
I wait for the shaking to subside, trying to force my brain to think logically. It's been years; surely, they aren't looking for us now. It was never that unusual for the district to turn the fence on, every once in a while; I remember it happening a handful of times during my hunting days in District 12. I just don't cross through the fence as much these days. It's possible that the fence comes on periodically, that this isn't the first time in a while.
Still, I won't feel safe until I get back to the cabin, so I hastily jog back home. Once I'm back, I try not to alarm Wren, pulling Peeta into another room when he looks at me with questioning eyes.
"They turned the electricity back onto the fence," I whisper. His eyes go wide before narrowing in confusion.
"What do you think that means?"
I shake my head. "I'm not really sure. It's probably nothing, but...I'll wait a few days before trying to go back into the district again, just to be safe. I'm sure it'll be off by that point."
It isn't. And it's still on the week after that, and the week after that. Months pass, and we have to bear the hardships of winter with no access to ancillary supplies from the district. When Wren gets sick, I do my best to pull together the herbs I can remember from my mom to concoct some kind of remedy. Luckily, it works, but there is a renewed undercurrent of fear now, about what would happen if the electricity never turns back off and we are in desperate need of supplies. I worry about Mother and Prim, as well, wondering what could have provoked the need for around-the-clock security.
But, out in the cabin, we are helpless to do anything.
I'm watching Peeta swing our daughter around the living room, their laughter bringing a grin to my face, when I feel it, a slight rumbling. Peeta and Wren don't notice at first, caught up in their spinning antics, but then they hear it as soon as I do—a distant bang.
Peeta wrenches to a stop, cradling Wren close to him, and his eyes met mine. "What was that?" he asks breathlessly, voicing both our thoughts.
I shake my head, but before I can respond, we feel another rumbling that lightly shakes the ground underneath us and the cabin around us. More bangs follow.
"Daddy? Why did we stop spinning?" Wren squeaks, oblivious to what has consumed her parents' attentions. Peeta quickly deposits her in my lap on the couch.
"Let me look outside," he says, and I sit up in alarm, clutching Wren to my chest.
"Peeta!" I call after him, but he's at the door in an instant, flinging it open wide enough so he can peer outside. "Peeta, do be careful!"
He cranes his neck outside as he searches for the source of the sound, the house continuing to shake ever so slightly with every distant clap—it almost sounds like thunder, a faraway storm, but it would need to be closer to shake our house the way it is.
Finally, Peeta shuts the door and stalks back inside. "I think it's coming from District 12," he says seriously, his face pinched with concern and confusion.
"What's District 12?" Wren demands, wriggling in my arms.
"What do you think is happening?" I ask, ignoring my daughter's protestations. Suddenly a thought strikes me, a nearly forgotten memory pulling at the threads of my mind, and my eyes widen. I've only felt something similar once in my life. "Could it be the mines? An explosion?" Suddenly, I'm thinking about Gale and all the other Seam people I know who slaved away down in those catacombs day in and day out.
"Maybe…" Peeta says uncertainly. "That's a lot of explosions for the mines, though."
"What's mines?" Wren asks. When her question go unanswered again, she raises her voice to a shrill pitch. "Daddy, what is mines?"
"What are mines, precious," I correct her grammar.
Peeta winces. "They're places where people dig up coal—rocks, basically, for energy."
"En-er-gy?"
"Energy makes light, for example," he explains hastily as he circles around the couch to sit beside us, but then he elaborates. "It makes light by making a fire, like that," he says, pointing to the candles we use at night.
I can see the questions brimming in Wren's face, so I intervene before Peeta gets dragged into a neverending explanation of how energy works. "Peeta, I'm scared for them," I whisper, and he wraps his arms around me, pinning Wren between us.
"Me, too."
We sit there for a while, listening to the explosions, feeling the shock waves reverberate through our bodies. Hoping the sounds won't move closer.
The next morning, after very little sleep with Wren wedged between us in our bed, I get up as soon as it is light enough outside. "I'm going to see what happened," I declare. The explosions had stopped hours ago.
Peeta squints at me in confusion, groggily sitting up. "You're going to go to Twelve? Katniss, it's not safe—" he insists, trying to keep his voice low even as the alarm grows in it.
"Peeta, I need to know my family is safe," I interrupt, leveling him with a somber look. "Yours, too."
He stares at me before shaking his head. "Then I'll come with you—"
"And leave Wren here alone? Or drag her out there with us?" I ask in exasperation, and he clenches his jaw.
"You can't go by yourself."
"I'll take my bow. I'll be careful. I just need to know, Peeta," I stress. I can see the conflict in his eyes. "If I sense anything wrong, I'll come back immediately. I swear."
He huffs. "Fine," he grits out, falling back down to the bed. I know if it weren't for our daughter, he'd be adamant about following me out there. I crawl across the bed, dipping my head to kiss him. He softens, but his eyes are still troubled.
"I'll be careful. You know I can handle myself with a bow."
"If you're not back by the afternoon, I'm coming out there after you."
After kissing Wren's forehead, I get dressed and then grab my bow, quickly setting out the door. I walk quickly in the direction of Twelve, and once I feel close enough, I find a tall tree to climb so I can scout the area. When I've reached the highest possible branch, I settle against the trunk as close as possible and peer above the leaves. My eyes immediately narrow when I see thick, black smoke billowing into the air.
Exactly where Twelve is - was.
"Shit," I curse, my mind reeling. That was no mine explosion.
I'm just about to scramble back down the tree when I see movement in the distance. My eyes hone in on the source, through the foliage. My breath catches in my chest when I discern the movement a moment later: people.
And lots of them.
My heart begins to hammer against my ribs, and I hug the tree tighter, frozen as I try to figure out what to do. My first instinct is to hide, to stay in the tree until the threat disappears, but then I think of Peeta and Wren—I have to get back to them, to warn them.
With that moment of clarity, I push back to shimmy down the tree, but as I give the crowd one last glance, I notice something else; their appearances become clearer. The people are dressed in dirty rags, their skin olive and hair dark. These are Seam people, I realize with a shock.
Wriggling off my branch, I scale down the tree. I hit the ground with a thud just as the front line of the wandering crowd broaches my hiding spot. They jerk to a stop, causing the others behind them to collide with their backs. "What are you doing out here?" I bark, bringing my bow around to my front so they know I'm armed. "What are you looking for?"
"Katty?"
The voice pulls me up short with a gasp, and I whirl toward the sound as a petite blonde-headed woman pushes her way past a few of the Seam folk.
"Mother?" I croak.
"Katniss!" Another familiar voice calls out to me, and suddenly Prim is darting toward me as well. The three of us embrace in a clumsy, forceful hug.
"What happened? What are you all doing out here?" I cry, pulling back to look at them. Their faces are weary and streaked in ash. I look behind them to see Prim's family coming up to us. As far as I can tell, just from a cursory scan of the crowd, they are the only Merchants there.
"They bombed the whole district."
That voice. It isn't either Mother or Prim who answers. I turn my head in the direction of that familiar, gruff voice I haven't heard in years. My ex-husband, Gale. His family stands with him, a boy about Wren's age and an infant in Lorena's arms, as he stares at me from a few feet away, his face mirroring my mother's and Prim's.
"Bombed...?" I repeat dumbly, and he shakes his head disbelievingly.
"I didn't know what to believe when your mom said you were out here. That she knew where to take us," he says slowly, almost to himself. "You've been out here all this time? Everyone thought you were dead."
I hesitate in answering him. I don't think I can confess I've been living out in the woods with Peeta all this time. What kind of trouble would that invite, even from Seam people like me? I shake my head. "What do you mean they bombed the whole district? Who? Why?"
"Have you not...have you not been watching the Games?" Gale asks incredulously. "Have you not been watching the Capitol news the past year? And what happened during the Games last year with the boy from the Seam?"
"No," I answer weakly, struggling to follow him. "We don't—there's no TV out here. And the fence has been on for months now; I couldn't get back into town—"
"Not anymore," he interjects. "They turned it off. They turned all the power off yesterday. Just before the bombs came. We only had enough time to warn some people before they dropped. We couldn't get everybody out..." he trails off, and I realize with horror what he is saying. These people right here are the only survivors from District Twelve. "We've been wandering in the woods ever since, trying to find whatever safekeeping your mother promised us."
I look back at my family with concern, as I think about Peeta and Wren back at the cabin. I don't want to expose them to any danger, but I know I can't just leave these people to die out here in the woods. Chewing my lip, I nod. "I can take you somewhere," I agree, and I can feel palpable relief permeate through the crowd at my words. But I still need to know. "Why did the Capitol destroy the district? What's happening?"
Gale's gray eyes flash then, with something I can't pinpoint—anger? Excitement? His face sets with determination as he says the next words, "It's a rebellion, Katniss. The revolution has begun."
It is sundown by the time I lead the survivors of District 12 back to my little cabin in the woods. Though he's never set foot here (we never used to venture this far when we hunted together), Gale immediately recognizes the place for what it is.
"So it is true..." he breathes. "This was your dad's..."
Behind him, Mother smiles fondly. "Glenny used to sneak me and the girls out here on summer days, when Katty and Primmy were little. He taught them how to swim. Taught me, too, soon after we married."
Swimming in the lake with my father is among some of my earliest memories. It was incredibly moving to teach Wren how to swim and tread water this past spring, once Peeta and I deemed she was old enough. It was incredibly humorous to try and teach Peeta, a grown man, how to swim. My family is probably one of the few people in Twelve who even know how to navigate water. As this lake is probably the only known body of water for miles around and it is beyond the district fence, there was no opportunity or reason to learn how to swim.
The murmuring crowd behind me freezes when the cabin door opens to reveal Peeta. His face sags in relief upon seeing me. "Katniss..."
Beaming, I run into his arms, throw mine about his neck and kiss him deeply. I don't very much care that half of Twelve is watching, but Peeta must, for he breaks the kiss too quickly for my liking to take in the mass exodus behind me. "What on earth...?"
Glancing back, still in Peeta's arms, I note how Gale is glancing between the two of us with intrigue. To my shock, I don't find any resentment there when I search my ex-husband's face. Burrowing back into Peeta, I lift my lips to his earlobe and hastily whisper what became of our old homeland. He looks stunned.
"Mama?" A sweet little voice suddenly hollers, and I have to bite back a smile. I've always maintained that Wren is loud, like her daddy, and my daughter now emerges into the clearing, hands over her ears. In a very little-girl like way (coupled by the fact that she is still sleep-addled) she doesn't even seem fazed when she almost casually turns to the crowd gathered behind us and bawls, "Can you all keep it down? I'm trying to sleep!"
Only Mother and Prim don't gasp at the sight of the little girl. Gale's one eye is twitching like he has a nervous tic, as he turns to gape at me.
"All these years... you said you never wanted kids!" Now some lingering hurt shows up. I cringe almost apologetically. I can see how Gale might think I lied to him when we were married, only to then go back on my word with Peeta. And I did go back on my word... but only after I developed a change of thinking upon realizing there was a way out. There was a way for me to have Wren without fear of losing her to the arenas. But I never in any way lied to Gale when we were husband and wife about what I wanted in a family; those opinions were true at the time.
Wren is lifting her head nearly all the way back to take in Gale. He must look a giant compared to her. My daughter's nose wrinkles in exactly the same way that Peeta's does. "Who are you?" she blurts out, pointing at him.
"Honey, it's rude to..." But my admonishment on pointing trails off when I actually see Gale start to laugh.
"She's just like you, Catnip!"
I blink in astonishment, then smile weakly. "Hmm," I demure. "She has plenty of her father in her as well."
That's when Gale notices Peeta for the first time. My ex-husband and my... lover, the father of my child eye each other. In my periphery, I can see Prim swaying, like she wants inertia to carry her between them, to possibly... stave off a fight.
"Mellark," Gale dips his head.
"Hawthorne," Peeta copies the motion, curt and correct. My lover (I bristle when I realize that I almost instinctively am about to refer to Peeta as something greater) lifts his head to scan the crowd of faces. "Is...?"
Gale shakes his head, and I am gobsmacked by how truly regretful he looks. "Florence, Prim, Aster and Conger here are the only Merchants who made it out." Conger is, of course, my brother-in-law; his surname is Green. "I'm sorry."
Peeta breathes in deeply through his nose before nodding heavily. I hug him tightly, whispering sweet nothings to him.
Behind us, meanwhile, Aster, my niece, has floated over towards Wren to take her in. She's 11 now and is striking as a mix of Prim, her grandmother and me. "Hello, cousin," my preteen niece smiles down at my daughter.
Wren's eyes light up admiringly, even as she ask, "Cousin? What's that?"
"Well... my mommy and your mommy are sisters, so that makes us cousins," Aster chuckles.
"Cool!" Wren chirps. "Wanna see my room?"
The girls scamper inside the cabin. Prim has a hand to her mouth to hide a smile though her eyes are glistening with tears.
Gale sets about with Conger and some of the other men to gather sticks and kindling to try and erect structures. I suppose everyone will just camp here, by the lake; a town might even emerge along this shore, eventually. I can't take in the possibility beyond this one thought: noisy neighbors.
I turn out of Peeta's arms to seek out Mother and Prim but find myself face-to-face with...
"Mama... Hazelle."
My ex-mother-in-law has aged well in the years since I last saw her. Craning her neck around to take in where Peeta is conversing with Mother and Prim, she states. "He's a handsome one."
My mouth drops open a little bit in utter shock. "Th... Thank you."
"It isn't right what you did to my boy," she makes clear. "But... sometimes the heart can't help what it feels. And... I guess things worked out as they were meant to, in the end." She smiles at me softly, and my vision blurs from my eyes welling up.
"Hazelle..." I croak. "For what it's worth... I am sorry."
The Hawthorne matriarch purses her lips in a thin line, which eventually uplift into a smile that is... accepting. "I think we've moved past it. Or ought to. Don't you?"
I nod shakily. "Do you forgive me?" It's out before I can stop it.
"I understand you, and why you fell in love the way you did. Can that be enough?"
I nod again, eagerly. "I can live with that."
A slight pause. Then:
"So: have you and the Mellark boy had a Toasting yet?"
"Mama!" I laugh, briefly forgetting that Hazelle and I are no longer related. But I find myself pondering the question long after Gale and his men light the first campfires and start erecting initial lean-tos.
I am made to ponder Hazelle's question further the next morning, when Wren and I venture a distance away from the lakeside campsite. I'm amused that my daughter already adores her big cousin, Grandmama, and Aunt Prim and Uncle Conger, but as for the rest of Twelve's survivors... it's clear from the noise alone she could do with sending them all away back to the fence.
"Mama? What is married?"
I sit back on my haunches, my bow across my knees, as I ponder my daughter's ever-curious mind. "Being married is when... a man and a woman love each other so much, they... hold a special ceremony to let everybody know that they want to stay together forever." It's an acceptable enough answer for me, but I know my daughter well enough that I can almost time her next question.
"Are you and Daddy married?"
A pause. "No... Daddy and I, we... we've never had a Toasting."
"What's a Toasting?"
"Well, that's kind of like a wedding, where we come from. A man and a woman Toast a bit of bread over a fireplace and they share it."
Wren looks strangely horrified. "But Mama, Daddy bakes bread! You could have a... a Toasting whenever!" She throws her hands wide, dramatic, and I trill out a laugh because my little girl is absolutely right. Peeta and I could have Toasted the bread a long time ago. We just never got around to it.
Also, it didn't feel necessary, the way it did with Gale and me. Peeta is mine. I am his. Only he can give me the promise that life can go on, personified in the form of this little creature we made, now sitting beside me and picking at weeds. What she mumbles next surprises me:
"But you've been married. Right, Mama?"
I'm shocked. "Who told you that?"
"Cousin Aster," Wren warbles sheepishly, like she fears she or her big cousin might get in trouble. I sigh heavily, not sure how to feel about my niece revealing this. I may have to talk to Aster or Prim, but then again, maybe it's better that the truth - some of it, anyway - is out.
"Wren, baby... A long time ago, before you were born, Daddy and I... Daddy and I were married to other people. You... you know Mr. Hawthorne?"
"The really tall, scary guy?" I bark out a laugh at her quip.
"Gale's not scary," I placate her. "Mommy... Mommy was married to him, many years ago."
Wren wrinkles her nose at this. "Ew."
I can't help but laugh again. "And Daddy... Daddy was married to a lady from his neighborhood. But Daddy and I... each of us was unhappy. But then we met..." I smile wistfully. "And we fell in love. And we realized we could be happy with each other, so Mr. Hawthorne - Gale and I decided that we didn't want to be married anymore, and Daddy and his old - former wife - decided they didn't want to be married anymore either." I feel a strange pang when I think of Analise, now confirmed dead in the ashes of Twelve. I turn to study my daughter's dimming face, confused but also beclempt. "That happens sometimes, with grown-ups. Mommies and Daddies can fall in love... but they can also fall out of love."
"You and Daddy won't fall out of love, will you...?"
"No, honey," I state firmly. "Daddy and I love each other, and we love you." I hug her close to me. A small silence and then:
"If you and Daddy love each other, why don't you have a Toasting?"
I run my tongue over my bottom teeth as I ponder her question, before turning to her with a conspiratorial grin. The one I used to flash at Prim when she was little, and even Aster, when she was Wren's age. "That sounds tempting."
After Wren falls asleep that night, I tell Peeta all about what Wren and I talked about on our hunt. My... lover is a little upset that Aster went blabbing to our daughter about our respective, previous marriages, but I assure him that I kept the story very appropriate. "Wren doesn't know about the hurt that came out of our... falling for each other," I state. I smile a little, fondly. "She asks such inquisitive questions - like why you and I haven't had a Toasting yet."
Peeta lifts an eyebrow at me. "And what did you tell her?"
I shrug. "That we never got around to it. And it seemed unnecessary." I lift my eyes to his. "I feel married to you." A pause. "Do... do you...?"
"Feel married to you?" Peeta weighs the question for only a moment. "Yeah. I do."
"I mean... when you look at me, how do you think of me?" I bite my lip, bunching my shirt in my fists.
"As my wife." Peeta's answer is immediate.
I smile softly. "And I think of you as my husband." We drift into each other's arms, coming to rest in a peaceful hug. After a moment, I speak:
"Let's do it."
"What?"
I rest my chin on his clavicle, gazing up into his eyes. "Let's get married. Have a Toasting."
Peeta grins. "If that's what you want."
I nod my head firmly. "That's what I want."
Mother and Prim and Aster dress me in my old blue Reaping frock. I know from Peeta that most Merchant families passed down wedding dresses from mother to daughter as a kind of family heirloom. I imagine Mother would have had one, but then ceded all rights to it and when she ran off to the Seam and married Daddy. Wren, my daughter, is prancing at my feet as the flower girl, telling me I look beautiful.
Peeta and I hold our Toasting in front of a bonfire, set in the sandy shoals on the edge of the lake, framed by a small clearing. I have Conger give me away, but just as we are about to set down the aisle created by the survivors of Twelve, I feel someone sidle up to my other side and take my other arm.
"Mind if you have an extra fella?"
Glancing up, I am stunned to see Gale smiling down at me. Wordlessly, I nod, and thus I have my brother-in-law and my ex-husband escort me down the aisle to give me away. I lose my breath when I see Peeta, handsome in a pressed shirt and slacks. When Gale and Conger pass me off to him, we take each other's hands and beam into each other's eyes. Then we set about Toasting bits of bread over the bonfire. The father of our baby and I exchange rings and vows.
"We had a long journey to get here," Peeta chuckles. "But it's always been you, Katniss. I knew I could make the journey, as long as you were the star I could travel by."
"I loved you before I even understood what love was," I deliver my own vows breathlessly. "I love you. It might seem too simple, but I love you." Beaming wetly, I whisper with relish, "I love my husband."
Taking me in his arms, I hold back for just a fraction of a second, and then surrender, as my husband and I embrace and kiss deeply, sealing our marriage. I feel Peeta dipping me back in his embrace and I smile against his insistent lips as the clearing bursts into applause. I hear Gale let out a country whoop, and when Peeta and I dreamily break apart, my eyes find those of my ex-spouse to see that he is smiling genuinely. I dare to smile back before, turning my... my husband's face towards mine, I close my eyes and kiss him again. For the first time in a long time, I am married again - to the right man now. I am Mrs. Peeta Mellark. My true love and I are man and wife.
