Though I was relieved, the feeling was marred by Telemachus’s utter dejection. Every day, I watched him rush to Penelope’s side to ask, “Any word?” and every day, Penelope would respond with the same shake of her head.
The prince’s hope was beginning to wither, like the summer leaves crushed beneath autumn’s chilling fist.
When we entered the tenth summer of war, the news reached our shores.
Achilles was dead.
Achilles, the finest warrior this world had ever seen.
Achilles, the divine hero, born of a goddess.
Achilles, slain by Prince Paris of Troy, a mortal man.
The news wrapped Ithaca in a suffocating grief. Without Achilles, they believed the war was lost and were already mourning their beloved Odysseus.
Though I dreaded the thought of his return, Ithaca would be left dangerously vulnerable without Odysseus as king. With Laertes too old to rule and Telemachus too young, the throne would be ripe for the taking, with no army to defend it.
All we could do was wait while Ithaca’s future was woven upon foreign shores.
Wait and pray. Though the latter was of less interest to me.
It was Eumaeus who dragged me to the temple of Athena each day to entreat the goddess to watch over our “noble and beloved master.” I would kneel beside him as he set offerings of food and wine before an indifferent statue. Then Eumaeus would pray while my mind wandered along with my eyes, drifting around the lofty space draped in incense and unanswered pleas.
One such afternoon, my gaze wandered to a shadow I instantly recognized. Narrow and stooped, Dolios’s figure was unmistakable. These days, I rarely saw him around the palace, and I was surprised by how much older he looked, familiar features lost between thick creases. Instinctively I turned away, as I always did when I saw him. But as I watched Eumaeus beg for Telemachus’s father, I found my eyes creeping back to my own.
Dolios must have felt the heaviness of my gaze, for he turned and caught it. That usual awkwardness tightened between us, though neither of us looked away.
Fueled by something I could not rightly name, I found myself walking toward him.
“Hello,” I said, the word absorbed by the temple’s somberness.
“Hello,” he murmured.
It was the first time we had spoken in years.
“Are you…well?”
He nodded, shoulders drawn slightly inward as if bracing himself. “Yes…and you?”
I mirrored his nod. “I am.”
We both glanced away, searching for something else to say. I swore I could feel the blank eyes of Athena staring down at us, judging our ineptness at basic conversation.
Dolios motioned to Eumaeus, lost in prayer behind me. “I hear you two are…”
“Yes.”
“Eumaeus is a lucky man.”
I said nothing, that blade of guilt sinking deeper into my gut.
“It’s good…to have someone,” my father continued, looking to Athena’s stony face as if the goddess had called his name.
Something in his eyes made me ask, “Who were you praying for?”
“People lost long ago,” he said, and I was struck by how little I knew of the man standing before me. The ghosts of his past were strangers to me. All except one.
“I’m sure they appreciate it,” I managed.
