In Iceland, springtime was white and patchy, as the snow began to melt away and the temperatures rose. There were many hours of sun, bringing life to the plants and trees, and leaving Delilah burnt. It would have been nice to see: the sun setting, the flowers blooming. When people learned Delilah was blind, they assumed she saw black, and nothing else. She’d shocked more than a few strangers by revealing she didn’t see black at all.

Delilah worked as an English professor in Iceland’s largest city. The hardest part of her job, as a blind woman, was organizing lesson plans. She’d have thought this was the hardest part of any professor’s job. Delilah always knew she’d go blind. She was born with retinitis pigmentosa, which she’d inherited from her mother, and which affected her vision. In childhood, she lost the ability to see at night. In early teenage years, she lost peripheral vision.

It had been eleven years since Delilah moved to Iceland, and she hadn’t regretted it for a moment. At eighteen years old: newly blind and flat broke, she’d struggled to feel at home in a new country. Learning an entirely new language was difficult, especially without the ability to see its alphabet. At nineteen, she received Osk, a forty five pound border collie trained as a seeing-eye dog.

“Hey,” said Frigg, arriving home to the turf house she’d helped her grandparents build. “What time does the flight get in?”

Delilah’s mother had been blind, too. She’d seen photos of the woman, but had no memory of her. Despite being surrounded by women growing up, no one had felt like a mother, and she always wondered what her father’s relationship had been with the woman who gave birth to her.

She listened for the sounds of the dog. “Eleven thirty.” It was the first day of a long weekend. Frigg had sent her sons to stay with their father for the night, who had much more space. A turf house was small and contained two rooms, but it felt like home.

Osk sat on the floor, his head resting in Delilah’s lap. He was an affectionate and protective dog, but wary of strangers. Frigg began to crinkle paper for the fireplace. She wasn’t a doting woman, but showed love in strange ways. “Is River going to be an asshole the whole time again?”

Delilah hated this. Her wife never liked River, and Delilah understood why. Though it wasn’t his fault, it was hard for people to remember that he hated his behaviour just as much as anybody else did. “Honestly, that depends on if he’s drunk or not.”

It was around the time when it began to get dark outside. Delilah looked forward to visiting with her brothers, despite the circumstances. Osk whined, running back and forth through the small house. Delilah heard the creak of the door, and the shutting of it several seconds later. “The dog’s outside,” said Frigg, and lit a fire.

The women met six years ago, when Frigg’s divorce was nearly finalized. At the time, Delilah was living alone in the small basement of an elderly couple, working late and saving money for her own place. Her first meeting with Frigg occurred at a local music festival, and lasted three nights. One day, on the phone with Salem, she’d mentioned her feelings for Frigg, and he encouraged her to act on them.

Delilah didn’t know the face of her wife. She was a blonde Viking woman; Delilah longed to see the features of her face, the imperfections Frigg described in her eyes and cheeks. She could imagine it. This wasn’t the same.

“Hey, Delilah,” said Salem, on one of their first phone calls after her move, “I want to kiss boys. I need to get out of this house.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

For a Saturday night, the local airport was unusually quiet. Osk walked nicely on a lead, padding along behind Frigg through the airport. Delilah hadn’t been on a plane in seven years, her first time travelling after becoming blind. It was strange, and she’d had difficulty getting her dog through security.

Delilah hadn’t met her six youngest siblings. Though it was probable she was meant to wonder about them, she never had. It wasn’t the children's fault she’d been forced to raise them - but after a while, she couldn’t help but feel bitter toward them. When the adults went out, Delilah was always put in charge, even on the days when she refused. The adults went out a lot, and no one ever knew when they’d be home. Sometimes, they went to town for only an hour or two, returning in time to cook the children dinner and put them to bed. Other times, they were gone for days, claiming they’d taken a weekend trip to relax and unwind, as if there were anything stressful about their lives.

Being the oldest child had few perks. Delilah knew the dynamics and secrets of all her siblings, and had used these against them in the past. Years ago, when she was recovering from stomach flu, she was put in charge of the children while Orion and the women ran errands in town. Delilah had often been the one to tend to her siblings’ injuries, to comfort them when they were ill, to cook them dinner and give them baths. Truthfully, if it hadn’t been for her, the youngest children probably wouldn’t have survived into adulthood.

That day, she was cranky and tired, and still feeling ill. At the time, Mara was pregnant with Adam, and Delilah was fifteen. The birth of a new sibling was always exciting for the youngest children. For Delilah, it was always something to dread. She was trying to make dinner, and Hannah cried loudly, tugging on Delilah’s pant leg, waiting to be noticed. As a kid, it wasn’t uncommon for Hannah to cry for attention, and this became exhausting.

“Delilah! I need you!”

Some days, it didn’t feel like it was worth it. Some days, Delilah debated hiding in her room, refusing to step up when she was needed, knowing it was never her responsibility. This wouldn’t have stopped her father from blaming her if something went wrong.

“What, Hannah? I’m trying to cook. Go play a board game with your brother.”

She never knew if she was making the right decisions. It shouldn’t have been something she had to worry about. Hannah was loud, fake crying loudly enough to drown out the noise of her siblings. “Mosiah won’t let me kiss him! He said I’m annoying and to leave him alone.”

There was always something: always some sort of fight to break up, or disagreement to settle. Most of it was stupid kid stuff. None of it was things Delilah cared to be involved with. She was a far better parent than any of the parents, and had grown enough to realize this. Lillian would have made Mosiah accept kisses from his younger sisters, all the while knowing children were entitled to their own autonomy. Orion would have shouted at the kids for fighting, even when they calmly stated differing opinions.

Most days, patience only went so far. “Get over it,” said Delilah, prying Hannah’s fingers off her leg. “He doesn’t want a kiss. You don’t have to whine about it.”

River and Salem were nothing alike, a jester and a dreamer. Despite this, they still mostly got along. Osk, who was still unfamiliar with them, approached differently than his usual exuberance, likely sniffing around. Salem was always the first to make conversation, hugging Delilah each time they saw one another. “Hey, Delilah! We’re finally here!”

He always ate edibles before a flight. For a person who was terrified of flying, it was always easier to get stoned than sit calmly. “How was the flight?” Delilah hugged River, who was thin and dressed in baggy clothes. He’d always been thin. When Delilah hugged him now, she could almost feel his ribs. “Are you eating enough, River?” He’d hate to be asked. She knew this. Sometimes, it was just too hard not to act as an overprotective mother.

He grumbled, dragging a wheeled suitcase on the jagged airport tiles. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s just go. I’m tired.”

It took Delilah many years to understand the difference between platonic and romantic attraction. She’d been set up on dates with boys by her father as a teenager, and assumed she liked them romantically after enjoying their company. After meeting her wife, it took far too much time to understand her feelings. When Frigg kissed her for the first time, Delilah had felt as though fireworks erupted all around her.