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.
"Anyways, write back soon. Give the children a hug and don't forget to feed them. I would tell you not to cheat on me while I'm gone, but you've probably already done that and you wouldn't listen to what I say anyways. Take care.
Love you, Hera"
Zeus felt disappointed that she couldn't possibly say those words "love you" or "I miss you" out loud to him, but he probably hadn't said that to her in years as well. He flipped through the envelope to find some pictures developed at a photo store. There was a picture of a pristine lake, and on the back Hera wrote "Used to go fishing here with my mom as a child." (Hera didn't bother to mention how this was also the lake where she and her high school boyfriend went skinny dipping. That detail was probably best kept to herself.) A second picture was a picture of her mother's house. Thank God he wasn't staying at that dingy house, Zeus thought. A third was of a branch of deep purple saskatoon berries hanging off a bush. Written on the back was "Ate these saskatoon berries all the time, went berry picking with my childhood friends in the woods."
Zeus absentmindedly yelled for the kids to give their letters to him when they were done. He got up to go to his office after finishing his dinner. He booted his computer up, ready to start typing his letter to her.
"Dear Hera,
The kids are doing fine. Ares is still rotting his brain from playing those violent gun games all day, and Hephaestus is doing some event thing for his robotics team over the weekend. Hebe keeps talking about that TV show she watches all the time, Gray Anatomy or whatever. God, when will it end? It's hot in LA so we're planning on going to Venice beach next week.
Hope things get better with your mom. I'm sending a check with this letter so you could buy more things for her. I completely forgot you didn't have a TV growing up. That sucks. What do you even do to pass the time? Do you just read?? Did you reconnect with any old friends over at Kneebone?
Anyways, I miss you too. Tell me if anything happens with your mom. And send me anything cool from Kneebone.
Love you too,
Zeus."
He felt a little bit guilty that his letter was so short in comparison to hers, but he really had nothing else to say. The most eventful thing that happened was a one night stand he had recently, but for obvious reasons he wouldn't mention that. He grabbed the USPS money order form he had bought earlier and filled it out to transfer the maximum amount of money possible. The dreaded emotion crept back into his chest. He tried flicking his temple with his finger to distract himself from the emotional pain. Ugh, ridiculous. He didn't think she had so much control over him. At least he wasn't bawling his eyes out like Hebe. When he saw her like that, he comforted her in his hugs but he internally thanked God that he wasn't breaking down like that. He couldn't possibly imagine his life like that.
Unfortunately for him, every week felt like it was getting closer and closer to Hebe's state. Well she was much worse, but he was starting to empathize more. He wasn't going to cry though, no no no. But it was disturbing him how he wanted to stay in bed most of the day. Even more alarming, the thrill of bedding other women was diminishing. Poseidon had suggested to him years ago that Zeus only liked cheating because he enjoyed having adventures with the possibility of returning to stability with Hera. Perhaps Poseidon was onto something, now that Hera had been away for almost a month. Although her letters were deep-hearted, he was starting to forget the sound of her voice. Her vocal pitch and sarcastic intonation were becoming muddy in his memory. She was nicer in her letters, which was great but it also bothered him since he was so used to hearing her chiding remarks and deadpan sarcasm. She was becoming a different person and returning to the somewhat shy, tenderhearted woman he first met in college.
She continued to send pictures of Kneebone. She sent back a precious baby picture of her from 1983, which was shocking to him and the children because Hera never had childhood pictures of herself. She always said that they were all lost or back in Canada and didn't want to bother her mother to send all of them here.
When August finally came, Zeus couldn't take it anymore. The children were adjusting, but as they got better Zeus got worse. He finally wrote to Hera in a desperate letter asking for something he would've dreaded a month before.
"Dear Hera,
It's been a whole month since you left for Kneebone and we're apart for no end in sight. I know you said your mother's house was small and almost falling apart, but what if I came to Kneebone? Bring the kids with me so they can finally meet their grandmother? They miss you a lot too, and they're getting curious about her. Their school hasn't started yet, and if they want to come I'd like them to visit before it starts snowing. We can stay for just two weeks, maybe even three. I'd also like to see Rhea again, I haven't seen her since our wedding and I want to see why you hate Kneebone so badly. It can't be that horrible. I'll bring my laptop and I can buy a bunch of movies that you want to see so we don't need the Internet. We can all be together again as a family under one roof. It would be a nice breather to see the nature and be close together. Please answer back soon.
I love you, Zeus."
He set aside his fear that maybe she was secretly enjoying her time in Kneebone because she was miles apart from him, but he figured it was time to set his soul bare. He couldn't let her roam around Canada by herself. Imagine all the handsome, rugged farmhands she could meet on the street or bump into at the supermarket. And what if she needed a stronger man to lug all the groceries back home? Perfect opportunity for those farmhands to walk her home. If Zeus was there, he could help carry her paper bags home. And what if she trips and falls, spraining her ankle? She'd need someone to carry her to a doctor.
More selfishly, Zeus knew it was for his own sanity. He had just accepted that maybe he missed her, and he actually took her presence at home for granted, even though they barely touched. If it meant that he had to give up all the pleasures and privileges he had in his LA mansion, Zeus would still move in with Hera and his mother-in-law. It took a month, but Zeus was ready.