“What?”
“She drank. Drinking seemed to be the only thing that numbed the pain of my father and his beatings—beatings she took for me because of the ‘disappointment’ that I was. The only thing that made her days palatable after the bastard left and somehow,somehowshe still wanted him. Longed for him. Even after the bruises faded and after he treated her like a doll to be played with and discarded as hepleased, she still asked him to return to us. Said we ‘needed him’ to survive.
“She drank more, and wept more, and lamented her existence—our existence. But there were moments…moments when it was just the two of us, and the sun shone. Moments when she was the mother I remembered from when I was little.
“So I thought…” They shift, leaning their own temple against the glass, mostly looking outside but now keeping me solidly in their periphery. “I thought that if I could remove her pain, she’d be that mother again. Even if it was only for a little while, it’d show her how good our lives could be together. I hunted, and searched, and tried every card I could think of. I even tried making my own.”
“And you found your Major,” I realize.
They nod. “I heard the folklore about the Majors and researched everything I could. I asked every hunched elder to regale me with the tales they’d heard. And I found it—the solution.
“It shouldn’t have worked.” They laugh, and it’s a heartbreaking sound. “But it did. And for a day, I had her back. I had her smiles and her love. I had everything I wanted. But by the time night fell, she returned to the way she was.
“Again. Again.Again,” they intone with haunting repetition. Like a prayer that would forever be unanswered. Their voice changes slightly on the last, and I know the word isn’t their own. They speak for their mother.Again, again, again, please,I can almost hear the ghost of a woman I’ve never met begging her child. Shame fills Thal’s voice as they continue. “I obliged her.
“Over and over, I inked the Sun. So much that my hands were perpetually ruddy from the poppies I’d crush and blend with binder.” They stare at their empty palms, and I wonder if they’re imagining the crimson ink as blood. “She stopped knowing how to live without it. So, the day I couldn’t offer it to her…the one time I was gone for an hour too long—to harvest the resources for her…It was too much for her to bear. When I returned, she was no longer breathing.”
My breath catches and burns my lungs as if I have inhaled flame. Iknow the pain of losing a mother. But to see her corpse in that way…It’s too much to bear, and all I’ve heard is a story. But Thal lived it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper.
They finally turn their eyes to me. Golden flecks within their hazel eyes shimmer in the fading light, but not from tears. From a wry, bitter amusement at my pity. That is the look of a person whose tears have long since been cried out.
“It was, though.” A slight smile crosses their lips. That look is somehow more heartbreaking than if they were sobbing. “I didn’t tie the rope or fix it to the banister. I didn’t know what she would do. I didn’t understand the depths of her sorrow—the void that she had slipped into that a child cannot fully comprehend.
“But I was the one who gave her relief. The one who offered her a reprieve sweeter than any liquor or slumber. And I gave it to her again and again. Without pause or hesitation or even a second thought that maybe what I was doing was actually worse than her suffering. Even when I saw her tremble at the first signs of pain seeping back in. Even when I knew—and Iknew—that she could not even breathe without the relief, I continued.”
“You were a child,” I whisper. It’s hard to keep myself from pulling them into an embrace. The urge to comfort wars with the knowledge that after what I begged them to do, I am probably the last person they want solace from.
“I was old enough. Deep within me, I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t care. I wanted her, more than anything, and my love was her undoing.”
Words fail me, and I stare at Thal. The brightest card in the Major Arcana—the representation of pure joy—is the Sun. Yet within Thal’s radiance lies a sorrow so deep it’s shocking they’ve not drowned in it.
They finally meet my eyes. “Pain can break us. But it can also make us. We are not just pain and not just joy. What makes us as people is the combination of both. Losing either completely is a dangerous thing.”
“Did you ever use your card on yourself?” I ask.
A glint in their eyes suggests they’re impressed that I’d have theaudacity to ask. “Once, after she was gone. I spent a day not caring about her death. A day not mourning her memory. And the week that followed was one of the worst of my life as I lived with the knowledge that it seemed…so easy to let her go.”
I instantly think of Jura, of Silas, of Mother, Bristara, and everyone else I’ve lost. The only thing that keeps them alive is the memories, sweet and sad. Thal rests their hand on my knee and pats it once, jolting me from my thoughts. The weight of all they’ve said is only half as heavy as all they’ve left unsaid.
“Don’t take her pain from her. I know why you want to. But you’ll truly lose her forever if you keep trying to merely placate her. Rip the source of her agony out by the roots, even if it’s hard. Don’t merely trim the branches.” They stand. “I should return. People will begin to wonder if I’m gone too long.”
I stand as well, but my limbs feel as heavy as lead. It’s amazing they can move at all given the burden they shoulder. Yet they walk with the same grace they’ve always possessed.
“Thal.”
They pause, looking back at me.
“How do you endure each day when you have the power to erase the hurt?”
They smile, yet their expression is exhausted. “The innate power of the Sun is an incredibly high pain tolerance, no cards required. I couldn’t feel more even if I tried…and I have tried.” They turn and begin walking once more, back straight, shoulders relaxed…even though some of the heaviest tragedies one might bear rest upon them.
I let them leave, sitting on the bench. I stare into the lengthening shadows where they departed long after they’re gone. Finally, with a sigh, I drag my feet back to the apartments. Fortunately, Arina seems to be peaceful—judging by the silence from behind her closed door. It’s Gregor and Sorza who now are a whorl of chaos.
“Absolutely not.” Gregor shakes his head and throws up his hands, pacing. “I don’t even know you.”
“I’ve told you my name, how I grew up, what my favorite foods are,my Major, what my favorite color is, my favorite Minor suit to wield—what else do you need?” Sorza puts her hands on her hips.
