Page 40

Dionysus

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“ Shishi, Babas ? * , ” Joseph says, running towards us as soon as we enter the living room of Odin’s house.

I bend down to pick him up, and when I have him, I hold him against my chest. I’m not one to show emotion in public, but the idea that something could have happened to my son takes away any chance of restraint.

“He was anxious. I’m sorry about that, cousin,” Elina says, embarrassed, after giving me a kiss.

“It was an accident. I trust you, or I wouldn’t leave Joseph here. Thank you for acting quickly.”

“It was Odin who thought of everything,” she says, looking back when she notices her husband approaching. “In fact, I was desperate. I have never dealt with allergies with my children.”

Joseph is in my arms, but he also extends his little hand to Cecily, who accepts it and kisses it nonstop.

“I missed you so much, love,” she says, and my boy melts.

“Did you arrive today?” Odin asks, but I’m sure he already knows the answer.

“Yesterday.”

Elina doesn’t hide it when she looks from me to Cecily. I see my redhead blush. “Spent the night at home?” she asks.

“Yes, we did.”

Cecily gives me a death glare, and I partially understand why she’s angry. Our pact is a mess.

I offered her an agreement with a deadline, but I only had to touch her once to know that the time she offered me wouldn’t even be enough to start with, and now, with the real possibility of a pregnancy, maybe we will be linked forever.

“Are you going to the library tomorrow?” Elina asks her.

Cecily stares at me, as if waiting for me to speak, and after what she asked me when I came here, I know why: she wants to stay with Joseph, despite it being Mrs. Nuttle’s shift.

The lines are overlapping. There is no longer a label for what Cecily is in my life. Certainly not just the night shift nanny anymore. Maybe she’ll become my son’s stepmother.

For the first time, I understand the fucking mess I’ve created. What’s most absurd, given who I am, however, is that I’m not worried about the very real possibility that she’ll stay in my life forever.

“Do as you wish,” I tell her.

“I’d rather stay with Joseph, then,” she says, opening her arms to him, and to my surprise, Joseph throws himself into her embrace.

He never leaves me for someone else.

“I’ll have lunch with you tomorrow, then,” Elina insists, and Cecily agrees with a nod.

Odin beckons me with his eyes, and I move away to see what he wants.

“Are you together?” he asks, without preamble as soon as we enter his library.

“I don’t know how to respond to that.”

I quickly talk about the agreement I proposed and also tell him that I’ve changed my mind since the twenty-four hours that Cecily gave me as a timeframe. Then I tell him that she may have gotten pregnant and that if that is the case, we will get married.

Odin doesn’t even blink. He doesn’t seem surprised. Like me, he’s Greek. Family means everything to us. We would never let a child be raised at a distance. “Is that what you want?”

“To get married? No. To stay with her? Yes, at the moment, that’s what I want.”

“You don’t know much about Cecily.”

“I know what you discovered. But there’s something else I need you to investigate: I want to know about Cecily’s stepmother and stepsister.”

“Neither of them are worth a damn. The stepmother remarried; the daughter, Peyton, makes a living scamming rich old men who pay with jewelry for the sexual favors she provides them.”

“What I want is to know more about their past, especially the time when Cecily lived with the two unfortunates.”

“Any specific time period?”

“Adolescence. Cecily also had a friend who helped her. He’s dead now, but he was important to her. Find out who he was.”

“This is not about the possibility of pregnancy alone. You want her in your life.”

“I want to get to know her better, yes, but I’m afraid I’ll ruin everything. Sue was the only constant when it came to women, as far back as I can remember. I’ve never been with someone long-term.”

“You wouldn’t even have been with your late wife if it weren’t for Joseph.”

I shake my head, smiling, because none of my relatives know the meaning of tact. “Our family is made up of suspicious bastards,” I say, but I’m not really upset. “My brothers, you, and Christos never hid that you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t like saints. Sue was too good to be true.”

“Cecily too, according to you.”

“I found out everything about Cecily’s life. If she had any bad points in her history, I would have already discovered them.”

“What was the real problem with Sue, Odin? Zeus also hated her.”

He shrugs. “People make mistakes. They do stupid shit. They are imperfect. They wake up on bad days and want to tell everyone to fuck off, eventually. Your ex-wife was always happy. No apparent emotional scars regarding her traumatic past.”

“Then that’s it? You disliked her because she didn’t seem depressed?”

“No. It was because there were pieces of the story itself that didn’t fit together.”

“Like what, for example?”

“She went to college, had a university degree, but worked serving coffee on the campus where her ex-husband studied. She was older than him, but she accused him of being controlling, tyrannical, according to what she told me. From everything I’ve researched, however, there is nothing in Keith Bates’ record to prove this.”

“Like what?”

“Everyone he interacted with said he was a quiet guy, a geek , but never violent. I will grant that people, most of the time, don’t show their true colors, but he had no record of incidents of violence against women, or even bar fights, before his death. Not even a statement from Sue, at any police station, saying that she was being abused.”

“There are many women who are beaten and do not report it.”

“Yes, there are, and that may have been what happened in her case, but I don’t know...Something doesn’t add up. It’s not so much a certainty as a feeling that the story was painted for you in the colors she wanted you to see.”

“And what else?”

“Let’s go back to Keith. Someone who is a habitual drunk or drug addict, as she accused him of being, would eventually have a problem with the law: getting caught driving drunk, getting into fights, being irresponsible at work or college. Keith hadn’t even left home before he married her, Dionysus. The guy lived to study and work.”

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“Because you were grieving. Both your ex-wife and her allegedly deceased abusive husband were dead. There was no point in bringing this up.”

“So why now?”

“You are in a new relationship, it seems. Your marriage was short, and you didn’t even have time to get to know her, but here’s my opinion: Sue wasn’t a saint. Your marriage was short, and you didn’t even have time to get to know her before proposing to her. I didn’t interfere. You were an adult and should have known what you were doing, but maybe it’s time to close that door on the past.”

“It wasn’t because I loved Sue that I never dated anyone seriously after her death, but because I never wanted to.”

“And now?”

I run both hands over my face. “Now, I have more questions than answers, cousin, so I will choose to live one day at a time.”

* ? “Daddy” in Greek.