Chapter 38
Zeus
When Zeus bought the house, one of the reasons he’d gotten it had been for the back deck.
It was only a few feet off the ground, but it provided a large space for seating as well as a fire pit.
The left side had the fire pit, one couch, one love seat, and two armchairs.
Since the weather had been warm and not raining, he had the navy-and-cream striped cushions out on all of them. It was too warm for the fire pit.
His grill was on the right side of the deck, along with a few potted plants, including a large rosemary plant he was never going to let his co-workers find out about. He didn’t mind the rotating spice names, but he’d rather not be forever known as Rosemary. Not if he could help it.
Yas paused and looked around the deck and his backyard, which was neatly trimmed with large bushes along the fence.
The deck wasn’t high enough to see too much of his neighbors’ yards, though he did glance over at Sarah’s to see if she and Hope were outside.
Not tonight. He’d check on them when he took Tiger out after this.
He had a feeling he was going to have some energy to burn off with a walk once he was done telling Yas about his parents.
Following her over to the seating, he sat down beside her on the couch, glad she’d eschewed the armchairs.
The couch had more room than the loveseat, but at least he could sit next to her, and he appreciated the bit of space.
Being crowded wouldn’t help him, even if she was the person he was crowded against.
Yas took a bite of her chocolate cake and made a happy humming sound, while Zeus dug into his peach melba. For a long minute, they chewed in silence. But Zeus couldn’t put off talking forever. It was probably best to just get it over with, anyway.
“So.” He cleared his throat. “My parents.”
“Are they from around here?” Yas asked softly when the pause stretched on as he groped for the right way to start.
“No. Thankfully. Alabama.” He rolled his shoulders and took another bite of his dessert. The sweet peach, the pastry, the cream… it didn’t fix anything, but it made the moment a little nicer. “Clearly, I didn’t move as far away from them as I could have, but it’s pretty far.”
Taking another bite of her cake, Yas chewed thoughtfully, her silence helping propel him forward with the story. It wasn’t the first time he’d told it, but it was the first time in a while.
“When I was a little kid, I thought I had a pretty normal childhood. It wasn’t until I was six or seven that I realized my mom was being abused, though I didn’t have a word for it.
Not yet.” He stared out over his backyard, not looking at Yas, though he could almost feel the surge of her sympathy beside him.
“As I got older, he got meaner. It stopped being just words, and he started using his fists. Just on her at first, then on me when I tried to stop him. I was twelve the first time.”
Yas’ hand landed on his thigh. Zeus cleared his throat again, looking down.
He could still remember the shock of seeing his father actually punch his mother in the stomach.
The way she’d gasped for air, her blue eyes bulging as she doubled over, her hand flying out to grab onto the chair to keep from falling.
The way he’d thrown himself between her and his father, yelling at his dad to stop, then gone flying when his dad backhanded him.
Afterward, his dad had stormed out of the house, and his mom had held him on her lap while he’d cried, put an ice pack to his cheek, and softly told him never to do that again.
His dad returned sometime in the night, and when Zeus woke up the next morning, there had been a toy car waiting for him at the breakfast table, next to the fresh bouquet of flowers.
Mom had been cooking breakfast, like always.
Dad had been grinning and joking. It was almost like Zeus had imagined the whole thing.
It had been another six months before his dad raised his hand to his mom again.
Zeus only found out about it because he walked in on his mom icing a large bruise on her side, which she’d blamed on running into a door.
At thirteen years old, he’d known that didn’t make sense, and she hadn’t been able to meet his gaze.
The next morning, there’d been a large bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table again, and his dad had been in a good mood after being in a foul one for the weeks leading up to it.
“My mom tried to hide it from me, but my dad kept getting worse.” He spoke the words matter-of-factly, almost by rote.
“I started hanging around all the time at home because he didn’t usually hit her while I was there.
Not until I was in high school, and then…
I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. ”
Yas squeezed his thigh.
“Did he hit you?” she asked gently.
“Only once before high school,” he said, and winced.
“I’m not excusing it because it happened in high school.
Just… for some reason, he tried to hide it from me for a long time.
But I knew. I think he knew I knew, and that it changed how I saw him, and it started to make him angry because I wasn’t willing to just pretend nothing was happening the way my mom did. ”
Rolling his head around his shoulders, Zeus looked down at his dessert again, but he wasn’t sure he could stomach taking another bite.
His insides were churning. Fuck. It really had been a long time since he’d talked about this, and with his parents actually calling lately, it was bringing up all sorts of memories and emotions that were causing chaos inside him.
“I was getting bigger in high school, and I think that intimidated him. Especially since I was starting to talk back when he’d say something shitty to my mom.
She always tried to shush me, but…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged.
“Eventually, I realized that he’d take it out on her while I was at school or football practice. ”
“Oh, Zeus… that wasn’t your fault.” Yas leaned into him.
Her chocolate cake was sitting half-eaten on her lap, just like his peach melba was in his.
Grabbing both plates, she moved them to the cushion on the other side of her, taking his hand so she could lift it over her shoulders and snuggle in.
Her arms snaked around his middle, hugging him tightly.
Zeus curved his fingers around her shoulder, leaning into her and resting his head atop hers.
“I might have realized sooner if I’d been paying more attention.
” But he’d had football and girls and school, and he’d thought he was helping.
His mom kept hiding it from him. It wasn’t until summer, when she was still wearing long sleeves and refused to go to the pool, which was usually her favorite summertime activity, he’d figured it out. He’d been fucking blind before that.
“I stopped talking back to him and started trying to convince her to leave him.” He’d quit the football team after his sophomore year and gotten a job, hoping to help with the money to get them both away from his dad.
His dad had been fucking furious about both things.
Not because he realized what the money was for, but because Zeus was making the family ‘look bad’ by letting the team down and making people think his dad couldn’t provide because he’d gotten a job instead.
That fight was the first time his dad punched him, and he’d made the mistake of giving Zeus a black eye.
At least, it would have been a mistake if things had played out the way they should have.
“He gave me a black eye not long after that, and I thought that would be it. He’d be arrested, my mom would leave him, and we’d live happily-ever-after without him.”
“She didn’t leave,” Yas said softly, as if she already knew.
Unfortunately, Zeus now knew that was fairly normal, but at the time, it had felt like a massive betrayal. Because it had been. He understood his mother better now, but it didn’t soften the memory.
“I told my teacher that my dad had done it, and that he’d been beating my mom.
Always places that she could cover up.” Zeus could hear the tiredness in his voice.
The resignation. This was always the hardest part to talk about.
Yas’ arms tightened, as if she sensed how difficult it was for them.
“My teacher reported it to the authorities, like she was supposed to. My mom told the cops I was lying. That I was embarrassed about tripping and falling into a cabinet, and that I’d made up everything about my dad to cover for myself. ”
“They believed her. My dad was well-liked in the community. Respected. Always had a kind word for everyone. Didn’t drink.
Didn’t gamble. Went to church every Sunday.
Would give you the shirt off his back. Not the kind of guy who would be going home and beating his wife.
Calling her stupid and slow and useless.
Not the kind of guy who would give his son a black eye.
Abusers are monsters. My dad was a good guy.
An ordinary guy. And people tend to forget that ordinary people can still do terrible things. ”
The heavy sarcasm in his voice was laced with anger at all the people who had assumed that because his dad did some good deeds, he couldn’t possibly also be doing bad ones.
The people who made excuses when Zeus pointed out that he’d never been a liar, that they’d always called him a good kid.
Who said that his mom’s fashion choices were her business when he pointed out she was always wearing long sleeves in the summer.
They didn’t want to believe that a man they called friend, who they had a beer with on occasion, who had helped them move a couch into their house, could also do something as heinous as abuse his family.