My father’s jaw goes slack, discomfort spreading all over his face. “Are you telling me you want me to leave your mother?”
Agony ripples through me. Because he’s right. That’s exactly how my words sound. “No. No, that’s not what I want at all. I just…I just don’t want to see you unhappy, that’s all.”
“My, well. Thank you, son. What a joy it is to have a child so much wiser than his own parents, that he can spend a single night with them and fix all their problems instantly.”
A shard of guilt pierces my gut, and I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant to do.”
“Hm,” is all my father says before returning to his ledgers.
“Do you still love her?” I hate how childish the question sounds when I ask it. Hate the way it pelts me with guilt, with the anguish of what I lost with Blaise. The feelings that were stripped from me, the ones I can no longer grasp, though they leave behind a gaping hole, a numbness I’m not sure can be filled.
My father peers out from over his book. Then he gestures toward the roast, my mother’s favorite meal. That’s why he went to the market this morning—to get the ingredients. He motions to the bowl left untouched after my mother refused to leave their room. “What exactly do you think love is, son, that you would even feel the need to ask that question?”
Shame washes over me, making it difficult to formulate the words. “You just don’t seem happy, that’s all. I don’t…I don’t want it to be because of me that you’re not happy.”
My father’s face seems to soften at that, like he’s taking pity on me somehow. And again I feel like a boy, readying to squirm underneath his scrutiny. Like I’ve been caught in the act of something I knew better than to do.
“Before your mother gave birth, we already knew the two of you were twins. Could hear the two distinct heartbeats from fairly early on.” My father’s voice trails off as he stares into the distance.
“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.”
