“When people learn of this…”
She did not need to say it. It was clear what risk an empty throne posed. Once the news spread, ambitious men would come from all over to battle for Odysseus’s abandoned title.
“What if Telemachus took his father’s place?” I suggested.
“He is only fourteen. I would be slipping a noose around histhroat if I announced him as king now.”
Has Odysseus not already done that?I thought bitterly. Telemachus was Odysseus’s only heir; he would be seen as blocking another man’s path to the throne whether he sat upon it or not.
“I will not let Telemachus ascend the throne until he is ready,” Penelope continued, the words hardened with resolution.
“Then who will sit upon it?”
“I do not know,” she said. “I do not know what to do.”
“Penelope.” It felt strange to speak her name again after all this time. “We will find a way through this.”
She looked at me, gaze locking on mine with sharp desperation, like a hand flinging out in a storm, begging to be saved. Then she did the most remarkable thing.
Penelope began to cry.
Never, in all my time of knowing her, had I seen Penelope cry. I often wondered if she even knew how to. Yet now, it was as if all those unshed tears had finally broken free, a lifetime’s worth of them streaming down her cheeks.
I moved instinctively, placing my hands on her shoulders and drawing her into me. As I cradled her in my arms, it was as if my embrace undid something inside her, and those silent tears broke into desperate sobs that ripped through her entire body, until every inch of her was trembling with the force of them.
After a time, Penelope’s tears began to lessen, and I could feel the weight of her exhaustion seeping through her body. That was when I led her to my room, my hand laced firmly in hers.
“Lie down. You need to rest.”
She obeyed, climbing into my bed with heavy limbs. I watched her for a moment, hovering at the side of the pallet.
“I will leave you to sleep. Tomorrow, we can talk—”
“Stay,” she whispered, voice small and frayed like a thread pulled taut.
I turned away, and Penelope watched wordlessly as I pushed mywooden chest in front of the door, blocking anyone from entering. Laertes never stepped foot in my room, but even so, I could not risk it.
My bed was narrow, so we had to huddle close together to both fit. Penelope’s body was still cold, the water from her hair seeping into the pillow. She smelled of storms and damp earth and everything I held dear in this world. She rested her cheek on my chest, and her tears came again, softer this time.
I did not try to offer her words of comfort, to say,Everything will be all right, because I knew that was not what she wanted. What Penelope wanted, what sheneeded, was a place to let it out, all those emotions she never allowed herself to feel.
I would be that place for her, always.
Perhaps that was what it meant to truly love someone—not fighting to hold them together but making them feel safe enough to fall apart. And that was what I would do for Penelope. I would let her lie, broken, in my arms for as long as she needed, keeping every sacred piece of her safe until she felt ready to put them back together again.
At some point, her breathing slowed to steady, soft sighs, rolling like the waves I used to listen to when I imagined this moment.
As Penelope melted into the gentle release of sleep, I held her a little tighter, wondering how I would ever be strong enough to lose her again.
***
I awoke to empty arms and the sudden, crushing thought—It was just a dream.
But then something tickled my cheek, and I turned to find Penelope lying beside me, her hair spilling like dark, swirling waves between us.
For a while, I simply watched her, savoring how peaceful she looked as she dreamed, how much younger she seemed. She was thirty-one now, but I could still see glimpses of that young, cunning girl I had met all that time ago. I had loved her then, when she had teasedme in the dark over honeyed figs and words I did not know. And I had loved her every day since, even when I had told myself I did not. Even when I had believed I hated her.
Penelope stirred, her eyes fluttering open. She blinked at the unfamiliar surroundings, momentarily confused, but then her gaze settled on mine.
