Emily could not say that she felt great when she was “allowed” by her Goddess midwife Hecate to return to her office after she miscarried one of the twins she carried. But she felt as if those she helped had been incredibly patient throughout her two weeks of recovery, often coming to bring her gifts of flowers, food, and wine (apparently fetal alcohol syndrome did not affect Gods...Emily accepted the wine with gratitude before stashing it away for a time when she was not carrying a demi-god in her womb) and they often sat with her, watching her trashy television shows and talking about life. The company was wonderful, all things considered. Hermes was still at her house a lot of the time, although they were not really talking about anything that mattered. She wondered how long they could go on like that, spending hours on end together without addressing the giant elephant in the room? Then again, she was treating his entire family who, for the most part, went millions of years without any form of proper communication so clearly the answer was ‘Until Emily Pointed to the Giant Elephant and Asked Him What it Was’. Emily just wasn’t in the right emotional state for that. She felt like she was run down by an emotional semi-truck. But work was always her happy place. So it felt like a great escape to sit in her comfortable old chair that had an indent from her ass in it, her coffee on one side of her and her tablet and ink pen on the other. Even before the day started, she should’ve known better. Never knowing anymore who was going to walk through her door (except Thor who was very prompt about his four p.m. appointments every Thursday) meant Emily never knew what she was going to hear...or what it would force her to confront.
Emily was again put in a position of not knowing who her client was when a young woman with the same black hair and blue eyes as all of the Olympians she met had, wearing a beautiful tunic style dress with leggings that came down to go into where the woman wore a pair of black boots up to the knee that looked quite a bit like motorcycle boots, even though it was about ninety degrees outside and the dress was plenty long enough to wear by itself. When she took a seat silently, she carried with her the pleasant but strong scent of jasmine and honeysuckle, as if Emily were suddenly transported to a garden. If the air about her and the fact that she walked in without knocking, or the fact that she carried with her a large bow and on her back she wore a quiver full of silver arrows, if the physical resemblance to her half siblings were not enough to tell Emily this was a Goddess (a Greek at that), that strong scent she carried would’ve done it. “Hello. I’m Dr. Emily Liberman and I am a psychiatrist who now specializes in…”
The woman’s smile was beautiful but there seemed to be sorrow in her eyes. “I know who you are. That is why I’ve come. I’ve held a secret in my heart for so long, I fear it has turned into a valve, as integral to my being as my arm. But I also know that I am going to be called upon to finally tell the truth...If you can turn to Hera and show her no judgement, if you could transform her into a loving step-mother to all of us she once openly despised, I feel like, human though you are, you might be the best person to confess this terrible secret to.”
Grabbing her legal pad and a pharmaceutical pen (the only thing she would accept from anyone associated with the evil pharmaceutical companies) she scrolled on the top ‘Artemis Has a Secret!!!’ circling this statement three times. Moving her rolling chair around to the side of her desk, she said softly, “There is no judgement in this room. I am here to help anyone who needs it, even if all you need is someone to hear your worst confession.”
Again, she smiled that sad smile. Chewing on her thumbnail in a very human way, Artemis shook her head as if she had to compose herself first. Making eye contact again, she seemed resolved at last. “First, let’s talk about you. Would that be alright?”
“If it would help to put you at ease, that’s fine.” Although the DSM and the Code of Ethics both warned against sharing personal information, Emily found throughout the years that sometimes, hearing how fucked up her life was helped others.
Emily was stunned to hear Artemis go through her entire life (the cliff note version) leading right up to the night she found herself having a miscarriage surronded by Goddesses and pain… “But there is a demi-Goddess growing in your womb still and a heaviness in your heart around the one who made you with child. So perhaps, even if you are appalled by what I did, you might understand a little. Are you ready to hear it?”
“Are you ready to share it?” Emily questioned softly in return.
Closing her eyes, Artemis took a deep breath. Before her story started, the tears were falling. But she kept the pain from her voice magically as she told a tale of love and betrayal of the ultimate degree. “There is a member of the family that has been kept out of the records, the stories, the myths. He was the black sheep from birth. We were all told his mother was a soulless bloodsucking monster, allegedly one the first kind of vampires on earth, and his father was Hades. We were told that Zeus took him in out of the kindness of his heart. We should’ve known then that the story was bullshit. But we believed it. Like we believed that Athena sprang from his head. Never did we question these outrageous stories. Anyway, he grew up with us in Olympus and he and I were always very close. Sometimes it bothered Apollo, who felt I should spend every moment of my time with him always and alone. But I loved Lucius, first as a dear friend who hunted alongside me and then, as we grew and we started to awaken as a woman and a man, something happened between us. For the longest time I held off the feelings in my heart. I knew from a very early age that I did not want children. Unlike Athena, who was a virgin in the sense that she never married and never intended to, I was a virgin of today’s definition and I meant to always remain that way.”
“At first I pulled away from him, allowing Apollo to chase him off each time he came to see me. For hours I would lay on the floor and weep because my heart missed him so much. He was my best friend! He knew things about me Apollo still does not know and Apollo and I shared a womb! Then one night, under a beautiful big full moon, I broke. I had to see him but more than that, I had to have him. I went to him specifically for the purpose of making him my lover. He made not one move, he did not give me so much as one kiss, without my consent. Night after night we met, my vows the farthest thing from my mind, any sort of consequences gone just as far from my thoughts. There was only Lucius and me under that beautiful Olympus moon. The air was always gentle, the grapes were always fragrant, and the wine always flowed. For years this went on. It was the one secret in that damned place...probably because Aphrodite never discovered us. But then I became with child. I was terrified! Even though my vows were not necessary to anything I did, they meant something to me and I was ashamed that I did not keep them. Athena always made it clear where she stood. She would never marry, she would never bear children, but she would have as many lovers as she damn well pleased and no one had better say a word against it. No one ever did. Truth be told, no one cared. But that was not my position! No man would ever touch me, no god would ever use my body, and I allowed just that!”
“I knew I did not want the child. I also knew that if Lucius knew I was pregnant and I did away with the pregnancy, it would break his heart. I didn’t want that. I swear upon my mother, I did not want to hurt him ever! He was the best friend I have ever had! But I had to go to Hecate to get rid of the child and because of my well known position on the matter and because it is her way, when I refused at first to tell her the name of the father, she assumed the worst. Until the trial I never actually said that he raped me. She just assumed. As soon as the abortion was over, she got me coming out of antistetics and I told her it was Lucius. She immediately ran to Athena for a trial, which I was relieved about. The only one who loved Lucius more than I did was Athena so I thought he would be safe. I forgot how goddamn fair she is! At the trial, in front of every deity of the Upper Realm, with my beloved sitting there being demonized as a rapist of the Virgin Huntress, I was asked if he raped me. I could’ve told the truth. I should’ve told the truth. I knew that then and I know it now. But I was protecting my pride. So I lied. I still believed Athena would fix things for me, that there was no way she could throw her favorite cousin out of Olympus for all time. But, sure as hell, she did.”
Artemis finally ran her hand over her tear-soaked face, wiping off the evidence of the pain she carried. Emily handed her a tissue and she took her hand while Artemis went on. “That was the worst week of my entire existence. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up out of a dead sleep soaked in sweat with the moment I condemned him or the moment he was cast out fresh on my mind. He lives still, as I said. When he was cast out, his mother’s vampire nature was awakened in him and, until very recently, we believed him to be the oldest vampire on this earth. But that’s all been ripped apart with the brutal truth we were hit with as of late. It was my father who pushed me to condemn Lucius and all of this time I believed it was because he loved me so. It was not. Although I can’t quite see his angle, I do know that it had everything to do with his plans for Lucius. So I cast out the man I love even now, the only man I’ve ever truly loved, for a bastard who does not seem to care for anyone but himself. And I need to apologize. But how do you apologize for that?”
Emily’s heart broke for the Goddess before her. She was genuinely sorry for the incredible mistake she made but how could she get her former lover to hear that after the way her mistake ruined his life. “You can try to tell Lucius the way you feel, how sorry you are for what you’ve done, but just know that he may not yet be in a place to hear you. You can ask him to listen, and he might, but you cannot force him to accept what you have to say. The woman in me wants to tell you to keep at it until he listens. But the doctor in me knows that will do you no good. Just keep that in mind. Be gentle and prepare yourself for the truth that he may not be ready.”
Artemis nodded, smiling that heartbroken smile as if she already accepted defeat. Squeezing Emily’s hand, Artemis stood up and she grabbed her bow. “Thank you, Emily. I won’t forget that it was you who first heard my secret and that you were kind to me still. Can I say something to help you as you’ve helped me?”
“I don’t know that I was very helpful but you can say whatever you want to say anyway.” Emily replied honestly.
“You helped lighten the massive load of hurt in my heart and that was more helpful than you know. Until you’ve wronged someone, hurt someone you love in a way that completely changes their life as I did, you cannot know the burden of that knowledge. Just sharing it...I feel lighter. Hermes knows he hurt you and it hurts him very much. I am not sure who you are or how you’ve worked the magic you’ve worked with my family, but I do know this. Hermes loves you as I have never seen him love anyone else...and he has children with the Goddess of love so that is pretty incredible. He knows he hurt you. But around you, all of his skill with words seems to disappear. He doesn’t know how to tell you that he’s sorry. He stays at your home hoping you will allow him back in your heart but eventually he will determine the mistake was too big for forgiveness. So if you can forgive him, do it before he’s gone. I want to see him happy. I want to see the little demi-Goddess born of your womb. I want to see the three of you work out a life. But first you must forgive him his tresspasses against you.”
Emily finished out the day on autopilot. Her morning sickness was becoming all-damn-day sickness, getting worse instead of better, and her head hurt like hell. But when she found Hermes in her house waiting for her with dinner ready and a bottle of wine she had to pass up, she knew the time had come. She only had two choices. Fix it or end it. Purgatory was not meant to be pleasant and it was time she pulled them both out of it. Sitting across from him at her kitchen table, she said softly, “The night I lost our son, when I realized you knew what was going to happen and you said nothing, it was like a knife slicing my heart. But when you left me alone in that room to wake up that way by myself, only coming to me behind Hecate and never coming directly to me, it absolutely destroyed my heart. I know now that you thought you were doing the right thing, rushing to get her and allowing her to do her work. But as much as I needed to be held by Hecate in that tub...I also needed you! Don’t you see that? I needed you!”
The sobs that wracked Emily’s body were just as raw as they were on that horrible long night...only this time Hermes did come to her and he did wrap his arms around her, pulling her out of the kitchen chair to hold her right on that wooden floor of the dining room. The horrible rejection she felt the night she lost the baby was not erased in that moment. Everything between them would not be fixed by one embrace, no matter how genuine it was. But it was a great start. And it sent that goddamn elephant in the room packing off to someone else’s house. While Emily lay in bed that night with Hermes sleeping at her side, she couldn’t help but think of poor Artemis. There was no way to deny that she was wrong in what she did. However, Emily always liked to believe in second chances and she kept the hope in her heart that everyone, God, mortal, and monster alike, also believed in it.
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