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A smaller, more private smile lights her face. “Any guesses?”
“Not really.” I can’t imagine what you’d have to carry in your pocket in the afterlife. Or in the nightmare-afterlife. Or whatever this place is.
She holds out her hand. A shiny quarter glints in her palm.
I cover it with mine so I can feel it there. Trace the outline with a fingertip. Turn it over so I can see the year stamped on the opposite side.
“You kept it?”
Mom’s expression turns solemn. “Oh, yes. It was the start of our savings for the cottage. Don’t you remember?”
“I thought you would’ve spent it.
“I kept it in my pocket until I left you. And I keep it now. What do you keep in your pocket?”
I hadn’t bothered to look down at my clothes. When I do, they’re…mostly the same, but far more comfortable. Loose pants. A shirt made from the same cloth.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I can’t wear white. I’ll fuck it up.”
My mom touches my chest, and the pants turn to my favorite jeans. The shirt turns a dark green. I’m still barefoot, which is good, because who needs shoes in a place like this? Nobody.
“You looked nice in white, though.”
“Thanks.” I take out the necklace and show her. “This is what I keep in my pocket.”
She studies it seriously, and I feel like a little kid, bringing her home a worksheet with a sticker on it. My mom’s eyes linger on the black diamond wrapped in the silvery chain. All the minuscule leaves and petals strung through the links.
“You’re holding it for her?”
“I think that’s why this worked. I don’t know. It’s also pretty fucking weird, but…I think she’ll be safe now. I hope she will.”
“I’m sure she will.” No doubt in her voice, and it feels so good to trust her again. I haven’t felt like this since I was small. I can’t remember a feeling like this, except when I was with Daisy, and that was…that was right. I was worried about my own bullshit, but at the end of the day, it was right.
The sense that I need to hurry the fuck up flickers to life again. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.” Her eyes are still on the necklace. She touches the black diamond with care, like it’s not a diamond and basically indestructible.
“Why didn’t you tell Zeus about me? We could have been okay.”
My mom’s eyes snap to mine, her hand curling over the necklace. A smile starts, then falters, on her face.
“I would have thought…oh, Hercules, I would’ve thought it was obvious.”
“What’sobvious?” Oh my fucking God. “You didnotsleep with him. Tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”
“What? No!” My mom takes a big breath and bursts out laughing. She laughs until tears sparkle on her cheeks in the soft morning sun. I cross my arms over my chest and watch, wanting to laugh with her, stuck between being embarrassed for no reason and wanting to know what’s so funny about the idea that she might’ve slept with a man who owned an entire whorehouse. “I’m—I’m sorry, Hercules, that’s not what I meant. No. I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t want—I didn’t want him to think I’d taken anything.”
“Like…what? His sperm when he wasn’t looking?”
She covers her mouth with her hand, obviously struggling not to laugh, and takes a deep breath. It takes her two tries to let it out.
“The night you were…well, I’m fairly certain it was the night you were conceived. I was—”
I hold up a hand. “Mom. I’m begging you.”
“I wasstarting to fall asleep,and there was—” She pushes her fingers through her curls and shakes them out, and it’s so familiar that my heart feels like it could beat. “I don’t know how to describe it. Like a bolt of lightning came through my room. A very—a very pure energy, and strong. And I always thought…” Her eyes turn thoughtful. “I always thought he had a kind of…aura about him. I thought maybe it was the force of his personality, or—who knows. It could have been anything. But that’s what it felt like. It felt like he’d lost control of it, somehow. It went—” Her hand brushes over her belly. “Right there, and it didn’t go away.”
“Wow.”
