“We were so excited. We’d been trying for decades at that point. But then the day came for your mother to give birth, and the midwife told me I had both a daughter and a son, and…” He trails off again, looking down into his hands, as if remembering the children he once held there.

“They say that something changes in you when you hold your own child. That something clicks, a sort of magic that isn’t magic at all, but instinctual. A bond that locks into place, quite naturally.”

I shuffle in my chair, unsure what this has to do with his relationship with my mother, but unwilling to interrupt him all the same.

“The midwife handed you to your mother. You came first, after all. And when you hit your mother’s arms, I saw it in her. That spark. The evidence something had changed. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then your sister came, and I remember her screaming and flailing around, already so much more boisterous than you. And the midwife wiped her off and swaddled her up and set her in my arms…”

My father takes a breath.

“And I felt nothing. Not an ounce of love, not a prick of emotion, for the child I held.” He grimaces, pain evident across his face, even as my chest goes tight. “And I thought, what kind of person feels nothing when they hold their child for the first time? I hoped maybe it was just a delay. That I only had to wait a few moments for it to set in, but it had happened so quickly for your mother.”

He lets out a laugh, the kind that lacks humor. “Your sister started crying, and a terrible thought rushed to my head. I thought perhaps I was just like my father after all, favoring my sons over my daughters. That I’d inherited his prejudice. But Zora was screaming, so I handed her to your mother all the same, and she just looked up at me and beamed. It took over her entire face, and I saw it again, watched that devotion set in.

“She was so proud when she handed you to me. When she told me to meet my son. But when I looked down into your tiny innocent face, still I felt nothing. No animosity, of course. And there was the desire to protect, like one might have if they were holding anyone’s child. But nothing clicked for me, son. Not with you, not with your sister.”

My throat goes dry. “Father, you don’t have to feel guilty about any of that. It’s just a natural reaction as any. You were…” My throat feels as if it’s going to close up now. “Well, I’ve always had the best memories of you. Remember the time you taught me to build a fence? How patient you were when I was learning to whittle?”

My father nods, recollection shimmering in his eyes, but then he shakes his head as if I’ve missed the point. “You don’t doubt my love for you, then.”

“Of course not.”

“But I didn’t feel love for you, Nox, or your sister, when every voice in my head, every voice in the community, was telling me I should.”

I shift in my chair, and the legs scratch the floor. “Yes, but I’m sure the feeling came. Just later than you expected.”

Surely it came. Surely.

My father nods, conceding my point. “It took several months. Several months of watching your mother cradle the two of you like you were the moons that made the waves rise. The three of you in this little world all together, one from which I was excluded. A world I couldn’t seem to reach. I helped out with the two of you as often as I could, changing your britches day and night, rocking one of you to sleep during the times your mother couldn’t bear to nurse both of you at once. Yet, for months, I felt nothing.”

“There’s no reason for you to feel guilt.”

“And why is that, Nox? Do you not feel less loved now that you know?”

I frown. “Of course not.”

“And why not?”

“Because you stayed. Because you raised us as if you felt love for us. And because you grew to love us eventually, anyway. By the time it mattered. By the time we could remember.”

My father nods his head. “And what of the time when I did not feel love for you?”

“You were probably in shock at the changing of your life situation…”

“But why is it you don’t feel any less loved?”

“Because you kept your duty to us, anyway.”

“And why should it be any different with your mother?”

My jaw works, and it takes me a moment to find an answer. “The bond between a male and wife is different than that between a parent and a child. The bond between a parent and a child is…well, it’s just different. Unbreakable.”

My father looks at me curiously. “I know plenty of children who have rejected their parents.”

“Yes, but…”

“Do you know what I think you haven’t considered, Nox? I think you haven’t stopped to acknowledge that before you and Zora became the center of our worlds, your mother and I had each other for quite a long time. Decades. And if things had gone according to plan, how they should have gone, you and Zora would have been in our homes for a mere two decades of it. And then you were going to leave, and it was just going to be me and your mother again, for as long as our immortality lasted. That was always the plan. Always the intention.

“It broke us, Nox. Both me and your mother when you went missing. And then, months later, Zora too. And I know it wasn’t your fault, son. The Fates know because of how often I’ve prayed to them, how much we’ve both condemned ourselves, how many screaming matches we’ve endured blaming each other. But your mother and I made vows long ago that it was going to be me and her, come what may, and I intend to stick to that.”

I pause, struck by his words. “And what if it doesn’t happen?”

“What if what doesn’t happen?”

“You said eventually your feelings for Zora and me developed. Over time. What if you never feel that love for Mother again?” My throat goes dry on the words. “What if it’s gone forever, and there’s nothing you can do to get it back?”

My father examines me with those piercing eyes of his. “Are we still talking about your mother and me?”

I sigh, rubbing my brows, and my father sets his elbows on the table.

“Nox, how do you know the sun will rise tomorrow?”

I shrug. “Because it always does, I suppose.”

My father appears pleased with my response. “I already told you that your mother and I have been together for a long while. This isn’t the first time she’s delved into the shadows. I imagine it won’t be the last. But it never lasts forever. And the female who’s waiting for me on the other side…” He takes a sip of his stew, the rim of the bowl hardly obscuring his smile. “Well, you know her.”

Visions of my mother as I remember her wash over me. My mother selling our wares underpriced to travelers who’d found themselves robbed and naked on the road. My mother chasing Zora and me around in the snow, then greeting us with hot cocoa when our fingers started to numb from the cold.

“Yeah,” I say, unable to help my smile. “Yeah, I do.”

“In a few months now, I’ll find her out on the side of the road, handing out the last of our food to complete strangers,” he says with an exasperated huff. “And then I’ll fall in love with her all over again.”

“How did you know the first time? The first time your feelings faded for her? How did you know they’d come back?”

My father frowns, as if he’s never considered that question before. “I suppose I didn’t. I suppose I just remembered the commitments I made to her and stuck to them.”

I don’t find that altogether helpful, but then my father leans over and says, in a whisper as if it’s the secret to life, “We’re all different people on the inside, son. There are lots of us running around in our heads. Different Meridas, different Noxes. But people don’t change that much over their lives. We just rotate through the different versions of ourselves. Like we might our different work boots. We have a favorite, of course, one that’s most worn in and comfortable. But then we have our nice pair, and the pair we wear for trekking through the ice, with all the spikes at the bottom. So far, I’ve determined that inside your mother are three different females. This one, the one you remember, and the one she only lets me see. Now, out of the three, I’m madly in love with two of them. The one I don’t prefer…Well, she’ll change it out soon enough. You’ll see.”

It takes me two days to decide that if my father can love two out of the three of my mother’s versions of herself, I can take sixty-six percent of his advice and still respect him immensely.

It’s that decision which guides me as I enter my parents’ bedroom, waltz over to the bed, and drag the blankets off my mother.

“Get up,” I say, though my voice sounds more weary than commanding.

My mother covers her face with her pillow, weeping into it. The sight makes my insides squirm with guilt, but I don’t let it overcome me.

Instead, I wrestle the pillow away from her, which takes little effort, given my strength is an advantage.

“My little girl,” my mother weeps, and though it aches my heart to do so, I pick my writhing mother up and carry her out of bed into the kitchen.