She would be lying if she said her heart didn’t stumble at his words. Penelope knew they hadn’t been completely transparent about the last twenty years, opting for omission instead of truth. But she had always assumed it was because it would be too hard for her husband to share, not for her to hear.
“I am known for my clever tongue and quick wit,” He started, fumbling over his words. “But I have never wanted more to be swallowed up by these truths, to make them disappear. I… I don’t know how to share this with you, Penelope.” He was no longer meeting her gaze, the air around them thickening, suffocating her.
“Please, say what is troubling you. I can’t sit here in the unknown, Odysseus.” She replied, laying her hand on his knee. He shifted under her touch, causing a panic to rise from her stomach.
“For years, I have built cities of lies to survive. Crafted words as both weapons and defense, as easily as one would craft a spear. But this…” He released a long breath. “There are no honeyed words that could soften this blow, Penelope.” Helooked at her again, and in that moment, he didn’t need to speak the words - she knew.
For twenty years, she had been faithful to the man that she carried in her heart. A man of oaths and promises. A man of sunlight and adoration. She had steeled herself for tales of monsters, of divine retribution and loss. Not this. “Odysseus,” she whispered, her voice betraying her as she felt her eyes burn once more.
She pulled away from him, breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her heart. Their room felt so small, as if the walls threatened to collapse on her, too. She had waited, endured, and prayed for this man. The pains she had suffered were immeasurable.
She felt his eyes on her, tracking her movements through the room. In the silence, she felt every mile of sea between them, and she was drowning in it. She could feel the words he wanted to say, palpable in the tense air between them, but they did not come.
“I held you in my heart for nearly twenty years,” Penelope whispered, her voice trembling. She didn’t look at him. She could not. “While suitors sat in this hall, broke down that door, and tore apart every piece that was left of me, of us. But my heart never strayed. Do you know what it’s like to wait in silence?”
Her voice was stronger now, despite the tear tracks that marked her cheeks. “And now… now you tell me -” She couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t bring herself to utter the words, as if speaking it out loud would shatter her completely.
“I did not forget you.” His response came after an eternity of silence. “Even when I was trapped, bound, forced… even when my body betrayed me, I held you in my soul. You were my compass.” His voice cracked, raw, without guile. “But I failed you, Penelope. I failed the man you loved. Every oath I made to you, I have broken.”
“Odysseus,” she called to him, finally turning to face him. “Look at me.” She said, fingers curling into the shift dress she wore. She steadied herself, solid as stone. “I built this kingdom with my hands, kept our son safe, and kept our hearth burning.” Her voice was stronger as she reminded herself that she was not a woman that sat and waited for his return. She was a queen. “I did all of that without you. I did not need you, Odysseus.”
He flinched at her words. “But — I still want you, husband.” She softened her voice, if only slightly. “You want me to understand? You want to mend this? Tell me why.” She wavered, her shaky breath betraying her composure. wholly unsure if she truly could handle what she asked for.
“Explain to me how you let the gods and their daughters steal the man I have woven my entire life around.”
13
THE SILENCE SEEMED TO STRETCH ENDLESSLY after she spoke. His heart thundered in his chest, the truth pressing against his ribcage like it was desperate to be cut out.
“The gods,” his voice broke, struggling to breathe under the weight. “They play their games, Penelope. They played themwith me.” He closed his eyes, too ashamed to meet her piercing gaze. “But it was my hands, my choices, and my failures that stand between us now.”
He released a shutter, tempting him to stop, to catch his breath, but the weight of her demand hung around his neck. She deserved to hear this. “Circe,” Odysseus spoke the name as if it burned his tongue. “She turned my men into livestock. She is a goddess with a power beyond reckoning. She would have killed me… killed all of us had I not knelt to her power.”
“Kneeling was not all she asked of you.” Penelope stiffened, her voice was steel, but her body betrayed her, tension radiated from her stillness.
“No,” he said, hanging his head. He would not temper his answers with half-truths. “She… claimed me. For a year I lived on her island, slept in her bed. She offered safety, power… a transaction. The safety of my crew for the time I spent on herisland, in her bed. But it was not my heart she took.” He wanted to look at her, wanted to read the emotions she tried to hide on her face, but his remorse would not allow him. “Never my heart. That was always here with you, with Telemachus.”
The edges of her breath were sharp enough to cut through his scabbed wounds. She gripped the frame of the bed, her knuckles white, facing this storm alone. Odysseus wanted to reach for her, to calm the tempest she was fighting, but he remained still, frozen in his guilt.
“And… there were others?” She asked, letting out a measured breath. The words were soft, but still a whispered blow.
“Calypso,” he murmured, feeling the shame of being caught in her web. “I was a prize to her. I washed upon the shores of her island after I had lost everyone, everything. She saved me from drowning, and in return… held me captive for seven years.”
His voice lilted, grief thickening in his throat as he fought to keep his mind here, in this room. He had survived all of it, but only because of the woman he had hurt. “I didn’t want her, didn’t want to be there, but I had no choice. She offered me immortality if I would love her.” His shoulders shuddered with unwept tears. “I refused.”
“Seven years?” Penelope repeated.
“Seven.” Odysseus rasped, eyes glistening. “And every night I lie awake and prayed that the gods would release me. I wept for you, for the boy who I could only imagine. For the life I had feared I lost forever.” A pause. “That I still fear I have.
“She kept me in chains of silk, but they were still chains.”
Penelope’s breath came in shallow gasps, her hand clutching at the fabric around her neck. “You survived,” she whispered. Odysseus wasn’t sure if it was even meant for him.
“Yes,” was his response. “But not without breaking. I broke, Penelope. I broke, and I bled and I suffered. And when I could fight my way free, I clawed back to the one thing that kept mebreathing.” He turned to look at her for the first time in several moments. “No cage could hold me. I will crawl home to you every time.”
“Odysseus…” Penelope’s voice wavered as her fingers tightened around the olive tree, its roots steeped in sorrow and stained with the weight of years, of longing, of betrayal, of love. “Did you love them?” The question was a blade drawn against his heart. It was not doubt that drove her, but the need for truth, for his voice to break the silence that had grown between them.
He exhaled, the breath heavy with burdens carried too long. “I could never love another.” His words, slow and deliberate, met her shattered gaze. “Not when you were here. Not when you are the very air I breathe, the blood in my veins.”
