Page 67 of Resilience

“Me too. I tried to come, but they wouldn’t let me.”

“No, it’s not ...” He gave up that sentence, swiped it away, and started again. “It’s good you’re not here. I guess I should say I wish I was there instead—because that is really fucking true.”

“Me too. I want to hold you. I want you to put your head in my lap so I can pet your hair.”

His eyes fluttered closed for a second. “That sounds perfect. But there’s other stuff I want to do, too. More of the stuff we did the night before I left, and more stuff than that.”

Telling him that she’d tried to go to him had reminded her of the conversation she’d had with his mom, and his comment pulled that memory to the top. “Your mom saw us that night. When we said goodbye.”

His grin returned. “I know. She told me. And she told Dad, too. They both know. They’re happy about it. Too happy about it, if you ask me. Like they’re taking credit. Have you told anybody?”

Athena thought about all the secrets she suddenly had. Her parents didn’t know about her and Sam—not yet, anyway, though that might change very soon, now that Aunt Deb and Uncle Simon both knew. Only Sam and her mom knew what Hunter had done. Nobody but her mom knew that she was now pregnant. It all felt twisted and tangled into one huge snarl of a lie.

Except for fibs told in kindness, dishonesty made Athena feel guilty and unclean. Her parents stressed honor and trust so hard. When she was growing up, there was literally nothing she could do to make them more disappointed in her, to earn a more severe consequence, than lie to them. She could tell them anything, ask any question, confess any rule-breaking, push any boundary, and they would sit with her and talk it calmly out. There might be consequences handed down, but they were always related to the thing she’d done. But if she got caught in a lie—and Mom and Dad were both eerily good at knowing—that was how she got actually punished.

She’d figured that out while she was still in grade school, and she hadn’t tried to lie her way out of trouble thereafter. More to the point, she’d thoroughly learned the lesson about the importance of honor and trust and how fully melded to them honesty was. She felt like a terrible person when she lied. And now, here she was, trapped in a knot of secrets. None of them were outright lies yet, but the ground was crumbling under that technicality.

She wanted to tell Sam about being pregnant, but she couldn’t, not now. He was wounded and obviously weak. He didn’t need any additional stressors in his life—and he couldn’t do anything about it, anyway.

When all this was over and he was home, she could tell him. She and Mom had talked strategy about this problem, too, so Athena had a plan to make an appointment in Overland Park, Kansas to have an abortion. She’d have to stay up there a couple days. Mom wanted to take her, but that would require a lie for Dad.

Athena wanted Sam to take her, if he could. She had a little time to wait for him to be able to do that. But she couldn’t tell him now.

“I haven’t told anybody,” she answered him. “I want to tell my folks, though.”

“Might has well, Frodo. Monty figured it out, too, watching me FT with you. Apparently I get a goofy smile on my face thinking about you, and he saw me signing with you, and put it together. I told him to keep his mouth shut, but you know he won’t. I don’t actually care if he tells anybody. I want to be out in the open with you.”

“Me too. This might be weird, but I kind of feel like nothing’s changed, even though everything has.”

“I get it. I feel like I’ve been in love with you longer than I knew.”

“Yeah. Same.”

“I guess we’re pretty dumb.”

“I don’t know. I think we’re smart. If we’d figured it out a long time ago, maybe we never would have been with anybody else, and maybe we would have wondered about that. Now we know what’s out there, and we know this is better.”

He watched her through the phone for a moment, until his eyes flashed up, above the camera. His mouth moved—she thought he’d said okay—and then he looked at her again.

“The nurse is here. They want to take me for some kind of test. I guess I have to go.”

“Okay. I love you so much, Samwise. Call me whenever you can, as much as you want. Okay?”

“You’re going to get sick of me.”

“Never. Never ever.”

“I love you. It feels so good to say that and mean it like I do.”

Feeling like she might cry again, Athena only blew him a kiss.

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~oOo~

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The lockdown was called off late the following morning. Most of the club’s close friends and associates, and anybody who needed to get back to a job, left right away, but most of the old ladies, older kids, and sweetbutts spent the rest of the day returning the clubhouse to some kind of order.

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