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“Not that much, no.”
“The blue wave’s been fuzzy since the first dream, but now it’s worse. It still looks like a wave, but the top of it…” I feel him shake his head. “The top of it looks wrong. When the second dream happened, it got worse. Got so bent out of shape that it almost touched the red line. It’s more normal if you sit with your dad. The second he puts you down—”
“I take it back. The thing before wasn’t embarrassing, but this is.”
“I don’t care who you have to sit with, as long as you’re alive.”
“What about you? Do you make a difference?”
“Yes. When I hold your hand, it stays in its normal rhythm.”
“Well.” I don’t know what to say about that. “Good.”
We go back into the family room. It’s clear everyone ran away to shower and change, because it’s all clean soap in the air.
“How was it?” My dad asks, a surprising lack of awkwardness in his voice, given that everyone knows about the shower.
“Good,” Hercules answers.
“Hello? I’m still here.”
Hercules uses that moment to put me back in my dad’s arms. I hadn’t noticed the pressure at my temples, but as soon as my head’s on his shoulder, it goes away. Hercules settles in next to my dad and reaches across for my hand.
“Hi, sweetheart.” My mom leans down to kiss my temple.
“Mom. It was a shower. I’m okay.”
“Of course you are.”
“You don’t all have to sit in here with me. I’m sure there’s better things to—”
“Do we have a consensus, then?” Zeus comes in, the air in the room shifting.
“No,” Poseidon answers. A door shuts.
“A consensus about what?” I ask, since I clearly wasn’t paying attention before.
“When to leave,” my dad answers.
“To gowhere?”
“The mountain.”
It’s where I spent the first six years of my life. It’s where I was born. There’s no reason my entire soul should recoil from this idea.
“Why would we do that?” I try to sound like a rational adult and not an irritated kid. I totally fail. “I don’t want to leave.”
“It’s the best place to attempt a readjustment for your painkillers.” Dad’s tone is too even.
“We have dirt here, too. Have Demmy come here and grow as much as she wants.”
“It’s not the same. And there’s more space on the mountain without light leaks.”
“Dad—”
“We’re going.” He doesn’t snap, but there’s a finality about the words that shocks me into silence. His game of agreeing with me is over now. “It’s beyond us here.”
It comes back to me that he’s the one I asked to kill me.
