"Daddy!"
Lily had thrown open the front door before Jake was out of the car. He swept her up in a hug when she reached him. He marked his life by these moments. The weeks between were bearable, nothing more. He hardly slept at night, and the days passed blurrily, all of them alike. He had been teaching, eating, and grading papers, and now that school was out, one of those distractions was taken away. To fill that time, he thought and read about how a half-mortal might extinguish his immortality and win back his wife.
He hugged Lily close. "How about the zoo today? Does that sound fun?"
Lily nodded and opened her mouth, probably to lament (again) the lack of penguins at the Bee Caves Zoo, but Rachel, who had followed her daughter out into the warm sun, said, "You don't have to do that, Jake."
"Do what?" he said, hearing the defensiveness immediately in his tone, and grimacing.
"Plan a major event every weekend you have with Lily. You could just spend time with her."
"I am spending time with her," Jake shot back. He wasn't sure whether anger was better or worse than defensiveness, but it was better than crying. He gave himself a mental thumbs up and managed to smile at Rachel. "Besides, every day I get to spend with Lily is a major event." He turned to Lily, who was still hugging him tightly. "Isn't that right, Pumpkin Seed?"
She giggled, then chanted back, "Right, Tuna Fish."
Rachel look perturbed, her carefully colored lips pressed so tight together that little lines appeared around her mouth, and Jake wondered what it would look like if her foundation hardened enough to actually crack and crumble under the strain of those lines. She said, "How are you and the gods?" It was her way of asking whether or not he was free of the supernatural world yet.
"We chat often," Jake replied.
"Oh," she said. Jake knew she wouldn't even discuss patching their torn marriage unless she had assurance that her backyard would not blossom with lava and reveal a pouting Hades in search of gardening advice. Again. But he pretended not to see that she looked a little relieved.
Jake didn't point out that their daughter was also a descendant of a god and his worries that, despite Zeus's assurances to the contrary, it wouldn't be too many years before she started drawing the attention of the immortal world, especially if she was as beautiful a young woman as her mother had been. He only hoped that Lily would have some recompense, some power to help her handle the pestilential otherworld. Zeus had also insisted that this was unlikely. And it was true that if Lily had any unusual abilities, Jake hadn't seen a sign of it yet. He had considered testing her, the way Zeus had tested him on occasion throughout Jake's childhood, but he was afraid Rachel would be far more irritated than his own mother had been when Zeus had dropped him into the Minotaur cage. Or when Zeus had left him in his stroller in the middle of Main Street. Or when Zeus had thrown knives at him from across the kitchen.
Jake smiled in memory. When Jake had asked his father about the tests later, Zeus had said, "I was just curious."
"Were you disappointed?" Jake had asked. He tried to imagine those knives and Zeus's expectant expression.
"Of course not. In fact, once you turned eighteen and stopped hating me as much, I was proud of the man you were growing into. I'm even prouder now. You don't realize how many dull people and assholes there are in the world until you meet someone who isn't."
It took Jake a minute to realize this was a compliment.
Now, though, Jake was smiling dazedly at the doorframe, which annoyed Rachel for some reason.
"I was late for work last Monday," she huffed, "because Lily wasn't ready when I came to pick her up." Her voice was hard. Jake watched her, the knives still soaring in his thoughts. Had he really been such a terrible husband? Would it have made a difference if he had loved her more, shown it more, or was this all inevitable? Just the result of being a son of a god? Rachel looked up at him, must have seen some glimmer of what he was thinking. Her voice softened, just the smallest amount. "If you could have her ready by seven-thirty this time, I would really appreciate it."
Rachel walked back toward the house without another word. Jake watched, knowing, as he always did when she walked away, that he couldn't feel more bereft than he did at that moment.
When Lily was buckled in, Jake backed out of the driveway and headed back into the city. Lily started singing her zoo song, which included animals that Jake hadn't heard of and wasn't completely sure existed. The fifth time she started over, Jake put his hand to his temple.
"Hey," he said suddenly, reaching into the glove compartment for his long neglected cell phone. "Do you want to call E. E. and ask him if he wants to come to the zoo with us?"
Lily said, "Yes! E. E. makes a sound just like a elephant."
Jake turned the phone on, selected the number to his apartment, and handed Lily the phone.
Lily listened for about thirty seconds, then said in a serious voice, "This is Lily Foster. May I please speak with E. E.…um? E. E….um?" She whispered loudly to Jake, "What's E. E.'s last name?"
"Olszewski," Jake said.
Lily stared at him as though he must be joking. She said into the phone, "May I please speak with E. E. O.?"
Jake laughed out loud.
At noon, Lily was trying to catch the attention of the spider monkeys, while Jake and E. E. sat on the bench across from her. E. E. was enjoying a double scoop of pistachio ice cream rolled in Oreos.
"That is one great kid, you've got," E. E. said between spoonfuls.
"I know," Jake said. Lily was making a monkey sound, which sounded to Jake like a goose honk with a Latin beat.
"I bet you miss seeing her every day."
"Yeah."
"You have her, what, four days a month?"
"Do you have a point?"
E. E. seemed to think about it before answering, "I guess not. It just seems wrong. That's all."
Jake nodded slowly. Wrong wasn't even the word for it. Catastrophic was better. Atrocious. Devastating. Kind of like what you imagine hell might be like, except there's a glimpse of heaven every other weekend, just enough to remind you how much hell sucks. In case you forget.
"So Rachel's still being a bitch?" he asked.
"She's not a—" Jake said.
E. E, sniffed a laugh. "Dude. Next time you see her, ask her to let go of your nuts."
Jake watched Lily make monkey gestures and sighed. "Yeah. Okay."
By the time E. E.'s cone disappeared, they had moved on to the reptile house, and Jake was thoroughly absorbed in his thoughts.
"You still want to be with her? With Rachel?" E. E. asked, then snorted and tried to lick the ice cream out of the corner at the same time. The sound that came out was actually quite a lot like an elephant sound. "That's a stupid question. It's obvious you do. So what's the problem?"
"The same thing that's been the problem all along. Zeus. Hera. Athena. Pixies. Satyrs. Sirens. Nymphs."
"Is that the whole problem?"
And nothing but the problem, so help me gods. "Of course," Jake said, then thought about it, then decided he didn't want to think about it. If he could solve this problem, then he could handle any other little problem there might be without trouble.
"So," E. E. said, as though pointing to the obvious solution.
"So?"
"So get rid of them. Tell them to bugger off."
"If it was that easy, don't you think I would've done it already?"
"No," E. E. replied, matter-of-factly.
"What?"
"No," he said again, standing straight and turning away from the python exhibit. "I think you like it, the whole misunderstood son of god thing. You don't fit anywhere, so you're special, right? Don't look all shocked. I get it. I mean, it's the only thing that makes you interesting, isn't it? That makes you unique? Why would you give that up?"
Jake tried to talk and couldn't. He swallowed, rubbed his eyes, then choked, "Are you kidding me? You think I like it? Do you think I wanted my father to show up in a coat made of seagull feathers halfway through my high school graduation?" He swallowed, frustrated that his voice came out in a mildly inquisitive, disbelieving tone instead of with anger. "Do you think I invited Dionysus to our wedding, or a hag along on our honeymoon? Do you think I wanted to find sprites under our bed the last time we—"
"Got it. That's enough. The kid's listening."
Lily had turned away from the snakes, and Jake realized that his voice had been echoing against the high ceiling more loudly than he'd thought. An old woman with her granddaughter was staring at him with her mouth open. E. E. saw her and said in a bright announcer voice, "That's right folks! Join us at three o'clock in the arboretum for the first-ever production of…The Incredibly Average Son of Zeus! Six dollars per ticket, three for kids and old people."
Lily giggled and straightened her frog-shaped hat.
"Hey, Lily," E. E. said. "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Ima."
"Ima who?"
"What's a who?"
Lily laughed so hard she almost fell down.
"I'm just saying," said E. E. in a quieter voice, "that maybe you haven't explored all your options because you're not entirely sure you want to be free of this…this…."
"Curse?" Jake supplied. "Burden? Millstone?"
E. E. looked at him as though waiting for him to finish.
Jake forced a friendly smile. "Okay. I know I haven't explored all my options. I'm not even sure what my options actually are. So what do you suggest, O Guide to the Immortal World?"
"Talk to your dad, and when he pretends not to have any idea what you should do, go talk to someone else."
"Who?"
E. E. shrugged. "Who are you supposed to talk to about stuff like this?"
The operator, Jake almost said. Directory assistance. Customer service's 24-hour, toll free hotline. Then the real answer came from the ignored whisper in his mind.
The Fates? Jake shuddered.
Later, while they waited in line to pay seven bucks for a bottle of water, Jake asked Lily questions about her ballet class and listened to E. E. falling in love with a girl in line behind them, trying to focus on both conversations so he wouldn't start considering the idea E. E. had formed in his mind. Jake knew only a few basic things about the Fates, but he knew enough to know that he didn't want to know anymore. He knew enough to know that it would be dangerous to know any more. The Fates wove the destinies of humanity on their loom. They spun the thread, wove it into the pattern of life, and cut it. Sometimes they cut it just because it interfered with their pattern. Other times, they cut it because they get tired of dealing with someone. Jake had heard that they once cut a thread because a Pizza Hut employee had put Canadian bacon on their vegetarian pizza.
The girl chatting with E. E. read the flavored coffees from the menu and said, "Wow, crème brulée coffee. Doesn't that sound delicious?"
"Crème brulée does. Coffee doesn't," E. E. said. Jake didn't turn around, but he knew E. E.'s expression without looking. It was that wide, welcoming, Big Bad Wolf smile.
"Not a coffee drinker?" she asked.
"No drugs for me, thanks."
"Isn't that a unusual for a writer?"
Jake shook his head. For some reason, E. E. thought he could pick up girls by pretending to be artistic. Jake suspected that E. E. claimed to be a not-yet-published writer because it sounded more masculine than admitting to being a part time cashier at Bath & Body Works.
"Yeah. It wasn't always this way, though. I tried it all when I was in college—caffeine, nicotine, methamphetamines, anything I could smoke, swallow, or shoot up." Jake listened with more interest. E. E. was an accomplished liar.
"Wow," the girl said.
"Yeah. Just in search of the muse."
"Did you ever find one?"
"No. I did find out how many brain cells I was losing. I read about it on the internet."
Jake focused his attention back on Lily, only catching random words of the rest of E. E.'s conversation. He heard mention of the Muses, so he wasn't surprised that, when he paid for his overpriced water and turned around, the girl was gone.
It was dark when Jake, Lily, and E. E. went back to the apartment. They climbed the stairs slowly, with the heavy raw sleepiness of a day in the sun, when the sunburn begins to announce itself by lighting up the coals just below the eyes and everyone's throat feels full of sand, even if there was no beach.
Lily slept on the fold-out couch that night, watching Beauty and the Beast until she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer. Jake replaced the Pringles can she cradled in her arms with her stuffed moose and watched her blanket rise and fall with her breath, her small hands flexing in dreams.
Two weekends a month.
Years passed between those weekends, but a part of him felt some relief that she was so rarely with him. Jake could imagine a life for her away from the beings that had destroyed his marriage. He wanted her to go to college, find a good job, marry (if she had to) a man who would respect her. He didn't want pixies showing up during her final exams. But, he reminded himself, that would never happen. Zeus said it didn't work that way, that Lily would never have the problems Jake had.
And for about thirty seconds, that comforted him, but then he was thinking about his growing-up years and all the unpleasantness that nothing, not being half-immortal or, Jake was sure, being fully immortal, could have prevented.
Adolescence. Dates. Braces. First days. Those memories were still uncomfortable for Jake, but what was worse was the realization that Lily had all of it still ahead of her. He wished he could live it for her, or at least curl her up in his arms and tell her that none of those things mattered. But if he did it now, she wouldn't know what he was talking about it, and if he tried to do it later, she wouldn't want his comfort.
And what if Zeus was wrong? God knew it had happened a thousand times before. What if Lily would attract the immortal world? Or worse, what if they would come to her just because she was his daughter? Or because she was around him? What if that orange light of immortality spread onto her like a disease?
His stomach clenched and whirled. Lily shouldn't be allowed to see him at all. She should be kept away. She should be safe and happy. Rachel would have no problem making that happen, Jake was sure, though she claimed she didn't want Lily to grow up without her father.
He could see her, his beautiful daughter, safe and happy, with an empty seat in the audience of her every spelling bee and play and swim meet and ballet recital and graduation. He saw her forever looking out into that audience for him and never seeing him and never knowing that he did it so that she would be safe and happy.
Jake couldn't do it, he knew. She was his daughter, his lovely, and as selfish as he felt, as much as he hated himself for knowing it, he couldn't give her up.
Tonight, though, even knowing it wouldn't help, Jake sat up for hours, watching her hands move in sleep and praying.