The Great Return (The Gods in Therapy)

      Emily heard her baby crying for her in her dreaming mind. This was not the first time such a thing happened since her child was stolen but each time poured salt in a wound that would never heal. Like before, her breasts, swollen and aching from milk for a child she might never see again, started their leaking at the sound. Even in her sleep she could feel her dirty shirt soak with it. And then came the tears. She had no control over them, no more than she could control the milk flowing from her breasts. Every single piece of her, every atom in her being, ached for her daughter. And even in her sleep she was once more forced to come to terms with the fact that she may never get her child back and that ache might not ever go away...
        "Emily! My love, wake up! Emily, we have her. Come on now...we have her! Look! Just open your eyes and look..."
        Emily resented Hermes to the point of temporarily hating him for rousing her from her slumber. And to use such a ploy to try and wake her? "You are a son of a bitch just like your father!" She accused in a nasty tone that startled the father of her child. She did not look like herself, that was true, but that he could put down to her two weeks in bed. There was no accounting for that sharp tone of voice. She sounded nothing like the Emily who lay in bed at his side exactly two weeks before...the Emily he loved...and there was part of him who feared that woman would never return even if their child had.
         Emily did open her eyes as she cursed him and she saw that he did hold in his arms a naked newborn baby girl who was screaming at the top of her lungs for her mother's arms. Her body knew the child at once but her mind was playing tricks on her. She didn't believe him. Not at all. Her mind created a scenario where he was tired of seeing her laying in bed all day so he, this docile creature, went out and stole a human baby from her mother just to get Emily's lazy ass up. Rolling over to the other side, she demanded in that voice that was not her own, "Take it back wherever you got it! That is not my child!"
          "But she is, Em! We found her in a cave off the coast of Crete and Auntie as well. She's greeting everyone in the living room right now but she'll be along shortly. I would never steal a baby. You know that. You are just afraid and that's ok. What happened to us...to you...it was despicable. You will probably be shaken for years to come. Hecate explained it to me on the way here. But she is our Alina and she wants her mother. She's very hungry..."
          "Then make her a fucking bottle! You are a God. That auntie of yours is literally the Goddess of women and babies. I am sure you can go to the store and figure out formula. Just go away!"
         There was a rational voice left inside her mind, a small fragment of the real her that was not completely shattered by what happened to her on Yule, and that voice told her to shut the fuck up and take her crying baby. That voice told her to shut the fuck up and embrace the one thing she wanted with all of her heart from the moment she realized the baby was gone. But that voice was no longer in control. And the irrational bitch who was in control saw things a little differently. 
         Hermes stood beside of the bed gobsmacked by her reaction. Holding his screaming child in his arms, tears filled his eyes to think of the pain Alina would feel to be rejected by her mother. It was a pain he knew all too well. The tears were as much for Emily as they were for their baby. Hecate warned him all the way to Emily's home that handing her the baby would not fix her, that her problem now ran deeper than that, that Emily was suffering from what the humans called postpartum depression, possibly stemming from the kidnapping and was, at the least, fed by it. "I will do what I can to lead her through it but she needs a doctor like herself." Hecate told him. He didn't believe her. He felt stupid now to not listen to the Goddess who watched after these women with their babies for more years than humans believed their species existed...but he didn't. He truly believed he would put their sweet precious girl in her arms, the baby would latch on to her mother's breast, and all would be healed...
        "Give me the baby and go say hello to your Hermaphroditus. They've kept watch over Emily every day that we've been gone. They deserve a thank you."
        "Of course." Hermes said softly, handing Hecate the baby who was now turning dark red from her screaming. For a moment he couldn't walk away, he could not leave Emily's side again. No choice in the whole of his existence was as hard as the one he had to make to leave the mother in order to find the child. Never would Emily need him the way she needed him the past two weeks and perhaps if he would have been there for her...
       "Go." Hecate said firmly but softly, patting his cheek with a smile. He knew she would do all she could for the woman she considered her child. He knew Emily had a very hard past and it was Hecate who guided her through every pain and trauma in her life. But still he wondered...what if she could not guide her through this one? What would become of his sweet love?
       When Hermes was gone, Hecate did what she felt she had to do. She went over to the other side of the bed, laid beside of Emily, raised her filthy shirt, and put the baby between them so she could nurse. There was fire in Emily's eyes when they shot open staring right at the Goddess she loved with all of her heart. "You want to hit me? Hit me. If you need someone to take all of this pain and fury out on, you'll do me no harm. Take it all out on me. But let your child eat first. I kept her protected in that cave with a spell that froze time but as soon as it was broken, she felt that primal hunger she was born with and she needs your milk. I know you are hurting, child. I know it's not just what happened with the child. You have postpartum. You know that. You were a damn good student and you've been damn good at your job since then. If you were a woman who walked into your office, what would you recommend? You would say analysis once a week, perhaps a mood stabilizing medication, and try to bond with the child you are afraid to love. So let's start there. And don't be surprised if you go from being afraid to bond with her to not wanting her to leave your side. As for the rest, I found an old friend of yours from college, Cassandra Graves, and as it turns out, she practices general therapy but she is very good with postpartum. I thought since she is a familiar face, it might make it easier for you to open up at your therapy sessions..."
       "Who in the hell do you think you are?" Emily demanded, though Hecate took note of the fact that she was adjusting herself to sit up against the pillows and she was shifting her baby to the other breast.
       "I am your mother! That's who I am! And I'll be damned if I wait until you do harm to yourself or you sink so low with the depression you already have that you cannot come back before I do something! You have just been through the darkest days you will likely ever face in your life. What happened to you was horrible! All of the ugly things in your past could not compare with that trauma and pain. But as I have always tried to remind you, the dawn follows the night, spring follows winter, and this is your sunrise. Now we just need to get you help. It's hard to see the sunrise if you are blind, isn't it? It's not your fault that you have her in your arms and you still can't feel the joy of it. It's not your fault you cannot see. But Cassandra is very good with patients of postpartum and she will help you."
       "How could you possibly know what she is good at?" Emily questioned, but her tone was softer, more herself.
        "The same way all humans find out all things about their doctors before booking appointments. I read the damn reviews on her yelp page."
          Just an hour before Emily felt as if she would never smile again, let alone laugh. A belly laugh was certainly out of the question. Yet the thought of this all powerful Goddess reading reviews for a girl Emily used to know on a yelp page made her laugh until she cried...and then the tears came for real. Holding her full, content, sleeping baby to her chest, skin on skin the way hospitals suggest, she wept so hard she shook with the fury of it. It was then that Hecate brought Hermes in and he held her while his aunt made Emily a hot bath full of herbs meant to wash away not just the physical dirt and grime but all of the dirt and grime that collected in her psyche for the past fortnight. Putting the baby in a little rocker close to the bathtub where Emily could watch her, Hermes helped Emily clean off the pain while Hecate took Emily's sheets and her dirty clothes behind her home and, ignoring all city ordinances, she set them on fire. The girl had more and those were full of so much pain and hurt it would be unwise to ever use them again. Besides, since that was where Emily stayed and what she wore all of that time with all of that pain, burning them would release all of that negativity so it could go out into the universe and be cleansed, so the energy could become something else entirely. 
         Emily ate a huge meal of lasagna, salad, and garlic bread, her first meal since having the baby. She was famished but in all of that time she didn't notice...not until she was more herself. And by the end of that day she was more herself...though not entirely. "When is that appointment you intruded on my life to make?" Emily asked, tongue in cheek, while Hermes slept on the floor and she and Hecate took turns holding Alina on the couch while watching New Jersey Housewives (Hecate's favorite franchise). 
        "Don't worry, I wrote it on your calendar. It typically takes six weeks for a new patient but when I talked to Cassandra directly and I told her who you are and how severe your case is, she did the best she could, getting you in next Friday at five. It's an hour after your appointments usually end...in case you are still in therapy when you go back to work.
        "That was very considerate of you. Thank you." Grabbing Hecate's hand, Emily found herself in tears again, much to her embarrassment. "Thank you for going with her and protecting her and for trying to prepare Hermes for me and for kicking my ass out of that bed. You've never given up on me. Even when I cursed you and I refused to listen to you and I stopped believing you had the answers...never ever did you give up on me. You truly are my Mother."
        "Yes, I am, so you don't have to thank me for being a mother. You haven't asked yet what happened the day Alina was born. Don't you want to know?"
        "If I knew, would I worry?" Emily asked.
         "Very much." Hecate replied honestly.
        "Can I do a damn thing about it?"
         Hecate smiled. This was a new level of insight from her inquistive daughter who always had to know...no matter what it was...even to her own determent. "What you can do you've done already by giving birth to your daughter."
        "Is she safe from this thing for now?" Emily questioned with fearing burning in her eyes once more.
       "Yes." Hecate replied, hoping she was right.
        "Then I don't want to know. I love you and if you ever need something from me, all you have to do is tell me. So please don't take this the wrong way. But that is your fight. Right now, getting through the darkness in my head is mine. But I do know it would have been much worse if you would not have gone with her...and I know that's what happened. No one took you. You are Hecate. You saw you couldn't save her from being grabbed and you went with her. You saved her...and in saving her you saved me. So thank you for that so much. I love you with all of my heart."
        "I love you too." Hecate replied, refusing to confirm Emily's suspicions. Turning her attention toward the television, she gestured at the women there, declaring, "I will never understand why Teresa ever had anything to do with Danielle. Ten years ago she was the prostitution whore...which she is, by the way,...and now she is her best friend. What a snake in the grass that bitch Danielle is..."
        Even Witches wouldn't believe the scene they painted, a Goddess, a human, and a demi Goddess sitting on a sectional watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey and Emily was already thinking of ways to change certain details about her life and situation when she went to see her college roommate as a patient  but already the agony of those impossible fourteen days was fading as such pain must fade if humans are to carry on through trauma. Emily was not well yet. She was a long way from her normal self. But with her child sleeping on her chest, she at least felt like a person again. And that was a pretty good start.