Stay (I Missed You)

Three

Zeus fixed up his tie and wiped off the red lipstick from his neck. A young blonde woman was still naked in his bed, looking if her nail polish chipped off anywhere. "I won't tell your wife."

"Why would you?"

"Just in case you were worried about that."

"Don't worry, I wasn't. Hera has a fury like no other." He combed his hair back, making sure that nothing was out of sorts. "My children will be coming back from school soon, so you should probably get going."

"Whatever you say, boss man." The woman got up to put her clothes back on, sauntering over briefly and kissed him on the cheek. This time there was no more lipstick left to wipe off.

"My chauffeur out front will drive you back home." She didn't bother responding to him as she walked out the room. Thank goodness she wasn't the emotional commitment type.

Zeus sat back down on the bed, alone now. A maid knocked on the door, motioning if Zeus would like her to wash the sheets for him. He waved her over, and he stood patiently as she gathered the sheets up in a bin to wash.

It had been about 8 days since Hera left. The first week, it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. He bedded many women, enjoyed it, and continued work like it was nothing. Now that the second week was starting, a disturbing feeling started to creep in. It was a feeling that he didn't think he'd felt before. It was like a heavy pang in his chest, or a pressure on his body that he couldn't get rid of. He had a terrible suspicion that it was "missing someone." The children were holding up a bit better. Well, not Hebe. She was awfully close to Hera, and she spent some nights crying. Ares and Hephaestus however seemed to be dealing with it fine.

The good thing was that this disturbing feeling was fleeting. He only felt it a few minutes throughout the day, or before going to sleep. It was a Sunday afternoon when he was peacefully eating lunch when Hebe came bouncing through. "Oh my god, the mail is here! And guess what, Mom's letter is in it." Hebe aggressively opened the letter that was dated about a week ago, pulling out two separate bundles of papers. One folded bunch was titled "Dear ZEUS:" and the other "Dear CHILDREN:"

Zeus hadn't written a personal letter since maybe 2006, but the children seemed a bit more excited to participate in something so "quaint," as they called it. Zeus was shocked to find droplets of dried tears on his paper. Hera stopped crying in front of him for years.

"Dear Zeus, I'm safe and sound in my mother's house now. She eats, goes to the bathroom, and sleeps, but oftentimes she doesn't remember who I am. I've tried signing to her sometimes, but she doesn't respond. A few days ago, she recognized me as my younger self. She thought we had just gotten married earlier the year. I don't know how exactly to show her that I'm 40 now. Her dementia is worse than I thought, and sometimes she just sits on the couch and stares at the wall for hours without moving. I have to cook all her meals for her, and it's very boring here. It's reminding me why I left in the first place. I love my mother, but I remember feeling so trapped here with no opportunity or life for me. Please write to me about any significant news, the Canadian newspaper doesn't really talk about anything outside of Saskatchewan, and the radio I used to listen to for news has been broken for decades.

"I really miss you. I don't usually say it in person, but I feel more comfortable talking about my emotions on paper. I don't know for how long I'll have to be here in Saskatchewan. I'm sorry we had that fight before I left. Anyways, here are some pictures I took of the landscape. Beautiful, isn't it? Too bad it's so rural. All the food here is bland. I miss tacos and the sushi place we always go to. I had pemmican for the first time in years. It's this First Nations food of dried meat and fat and berries pounded together into some kind of paste. It's pretty good, you definitely can't find that in California.