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The words make no sense at first. I’ve never heard Mom describe Dad that way. It’s such a simple word, but it doesn’t match with anything I know about him. He’s the one who stayed up with me as a kid. He’s the one who played with me in dark rooms when the light made me sick. He was always,alwaysthe one to get up first, whisperingwe should let Mama sleep.
It’s full sunlight, the broad, bright part of the morning, so I see my dad’s shoulders shake.
Just once.
He doesn’t make a sound, or else it’s covered up by Hercules bickering with Ares and Apollo, sothatdoesn’t make any sense, either. It’s like we’ve landed in another world and are surrounded by strangers who look like people I love.
My mind takes it in pieces. Zeus, still holding my dad’s face, only it looks less like fighting and more like he’s holding him up. Poseidon, his arm around my dad’s back, only he’s not dragging him away from Hercules. He’s patting him, like…
Like my dad might be exceptionally fragile.
That has never been true a day in my life, unless it’s been true every day of my life, and he and his brothers have been perpetrating an effortless conspiracy along with my mom and my aunts to hide the truth from me.
Unless I’m not the only one who’s used distance to pretend.
His shoulders shake again.
My mom doesn’t startle when I whip my head around to stare at her. The movement’s too much for my faulty brain, but I’mnotgetting dizzy right now. Silver eyes look back at me. Her hair shines, the color of a copper penny but darker, richer. Pieces click into place. Pressure hangs in the air. I’m used to that. It only goes away when the painkillers are fully kicked in, and my dad likes to push them to the limit.In case,he always said. I never understood what he was planning for, and I don’t understand it now, but I can feel the difference.
The quality of the pressure isn’t straightforward. It feels…torn, like the ragged edge of cloth, or paper. It feels like it’s hanging on by a thread.
His shaking shoulders.He’s tired.The way my dad walked toward Hercules like murder was nothing to him.
The way he hasn’t thrown his brothers off, hasn’t slapped their hands away, hasn’t done anything but hang on.
“How long has he been like this?”
My mom’s face falls, her eyes soft and sympathetic. “Daisy.”
“Howlong?”
She shakes her head.
“Don’t—no. Don’t say this isn’t your secret to tell. Just tell me.Tellme. Has it been the whole time?”
Artemis lets go of my hand, and she and Brigit move in to the trembling sculpture garden of half the family. I expect Brigit to go to Zeus, but she doesn’t. She walks straight into the huddle of her sons and puts her arms around Hercules’s neck.
It looks real. Like a real hug. Like her brother-in-law and her son didn’t almost rip out each other’s throats. Artemis goes to Apollo and tugs him gently away from Hercules. He stays close, but he watches Ares, not Hercules.
Ares doesn’t let go. His eyes stay on Hercules, who stands up straight, as rigid as if Brigit isn’t touching him. The set of his jaw saysrage.The look in his eyes sayshelp.
Brigit’s persistent. She keeps hugging him despite the fact that he’s become a statue. I can’t hear what she’s telling him. Hercules stares into the middle distance.
Until I take a step away from my mom.
His eyes snap to mine, and it’s like that day at the jail. He expected me to pick everyone else over him. He expected me to give up. Hercules was so sure that I would that he made it easier to do it. The dickish behavior and his complete resistance to getting any help were designed to make me turn my back on him.
I’m not going to do that.
I wave to him instead.
It feels ridiculous, and my mom makes a tiny huffing sound, like a laugh she didn’t mean to let out.
I do it again. A circle, toward the house. I add in a gesture at the sky, then my eyes.
As in,it’s bright as hell out here. Come inside with me. Hurry up.
He’s absolutely still for a few more heartbeats, and then he rolls his eyes and hugs Brigit back. I can tell by the way his arms go around her that his shoulder’s stiff. It probably hurts.
