Page 113 of Hades

Then Diana’s voice came back to me.

Soft. Broken. Furious.

Mom, you need to know what he was.

I closed my eyes.

Lettie didn’t speak.

That was one of the things I liked about her. She didn’t rush to fill silence. She let it exist.

“Diana told me everything,” I said.

Lettie went very still.

I opened my eyes and looked at her. “Or enough.”

Her face softened with pain. “Rhea⁠—”

“No.” I held up a hand. Not sharply, but enough to stop the apology before it came. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t.”

I believed her.

“I don’t know what I feel most days,” I admitted. “I thought it was grief at first. Lucas died, and I thought what I felt was grief.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” My throat tightened. “But not only grief.”

Lettie waited.

I looked out over her gardens because it was easier than looking at her when I said it. “I loved my husband. That’s the ugliest part of all this. I loved him. I built a life around loving him. I defended him. I raised children with him. I slept beside him for decades. I believed him when he told me who he was.”

My hands curled in my lap.

“And now I know he lied about everything.”

The words tasted like ash.

Lettie’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t interrupt.

“He lied about his age when he met me. He lied about his past. He lied about his loyalty. He lied about what he believed. He lied about how he treated women. Children.” My voice broke on the last word. I hated it. Hated him for putting that weakness in me. Hated myself for still missing a man who’d apparently never existed.

I forced myself to continue.

“I keep going back through my life, trying to figure out what was real. Every memory feels different now. Every sweet thing he ever said. Every fight. Every apology. Every time he touched me.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what belonged to me and what was manipulation.”

Lettie whispered, “That’s not your fault.”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “That’s what Diana keeps telling me.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Truth doesn’t always make things easier to carry.”

“No,” she said softly. “It doesn’t.”