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I have reached the end of my strength. They pull my hair in more directions than I can know. They pin down my wrists. My ankles. My knees. I can’t kick, scratch, move. I can’t breathe to scream. Even if I did, there’s no one here to make this stop. No one is coming to help.
And then he’s above me. Antinous.
He’s not leering anymore. He’s not even looking at me. He’s looking around us, at the faces around us both, his audience. He’s making sure they’re watching him do this.
They are. They’re elbowing at each other to get their turns at me.
Antinous presses against me to take his. There is no one to help me. I can’t even help myself. All I can do is sob.
Just one sob, and then I hear my name from I don’t know where.
“Penelope.”
One more sob, louder, deep enough in my belly that it shakes my whole body and I wake up.
I sit upright, batting my side of the covers off of me just so I can do something to cast off this feeling of being held down.
“Penelope? My love?”
It’s the first truly warm night we’ve had in all the months since Odysseus returned to me. There is no firelight, no moonlight coming through our window, just my name on his voice, soft in the darkness, as he sits up next to me.
I close my eyes. I can’t see anything anyway, nothing but a replay of the images my dreaming mind had conjured up.
I feel his touch on my arm, and it startles me.
“A nightmare,” he says. It’s not a question.
“It was just a dream.” I still can’t move, but I try to dismiss him. “Not even a memory, not something that ever happened.”
He is silent for a moment. When he does speak, his voice is rough with sorrow. “It happened in your mind. That’s bad enough.”
He knows enough of his own pain. I cannot give him more. I reassure him, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright.”
I take the hand he has placed on my arm and put it off me.
He is slow to withdraw his wrist from my fingers, but he does. In the space between us, I feel him go as still as I am.
“What can I do?” he asks.
I hesitate. “You’re here. You’re home. There’s nothing more to be done.”
“Liar,” he says.
“I can take care of myself.” That is no lie. I reach for the covers I just threw off and pull them across my belly. “Stop worrying.”
I wait for him to draw back entirely. Instead, he stays so close that I can feel the breath of his heavy sigh drift across my skin. “If you won’t let me take care of you, then why did I even come home?”
I am trying to help him. Why does it sound like I’m hurting him?
“So I could take care of you,” I say. “What you’ve been through, your actual memories, are so much worse.”
He is so quiet when he says, “If what happened to you wasn’t that bad, then why did the three of us have to kill so many men to make you safe again?”
He has me. I have no comeback, only a softer version of the sob that woke me up.
“What can I do?” he asks again.
I feel my whole body go tense with fear, not of my husband but of what will happen if I bend for once and lean on him.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
His voice is so gentle. “You know what to do for me.”
Do I? “I’m not sure I remember what that is right now.”
“Let me show you,” he says.
He puts his hand back on my arm and waits to see if I’ll remove it. I think for a moment that I will, but this time, I lean into it, lean into him, and his arm slips around my shoulders. I hold still for one breath, then I try relaxing into him, and he tucks my head beneath his chin. We both exhale, and I feel both of us lose at least some of our tension.
“So,” he whispers into my hair, “first you take me in your arms, like this. Then you kiss me on my forehead.”
And he does.
“Then,” he says, brushing my hair back from my face, “you remind me of all the things the nightmares try to take from me.”
“I remind you you’re home,” I say, “with us.”
“You do.” A kiss on my hairline. “I’m home with you, with our son. I’m home, and I’m not going anywhere.”
My next breaths shudder out of me. He just pulls me closer with each one.
“Then,” he says, “you wait for me to tell you what the nightmare was about.”
Tell Odysseus what I saw? No.
I can’t say that beast’s name. I can’t name what they'd planned to do. I can’t name what I felt and saw.
I am not even aware of the shake of my head until I feel my husband whisper against my temple, “Take your time. I’m here. However long it takes, I can wait.”
He can wait.
Instead of thinking of those lost twenty years, or even the dream I just had, I am drawn back in time to another night when this man was a boy who told me he would wait for me, forever if he had to.
It was the night before our wedding. He was the one who’d been ready to wait, and I in my youthful impatience had been less than willing to wait even one more night. Why had I been so eager then?
Because I was an eager girl in love with a patient boy.
In a million ways, over what has felt like a million years, Odysseus has shown me that, because he became a patient man, I and all of my longing would always, will always be safe with him.
A single, hot tear slides down each of my cheeks. I can tell him, because he can wait.
I speak into his waiting. “Antinous.”
He shakes his head against mine. He knows how much that name hurts my mouth. “Oh, love.”
“It was him and the rest. They were about to—“
That’s as much as I manage before my shuddering becomes outright trembling. I stiffen, trying to stop my shaking, but that only makes it worse.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t show up.”
“My love.” His voice cracks. “I’m so sorry.”
“I was alone.” My hand forms a fist, and I thump it against his chest. “I needed you there.”
“I know,” he says. “I know.”
The next sounds that come out of my mouth don’t form words. They’re just ripples of old pain, old fears, stirred up this night by my sleeping mind. I make these sounds, and I cry more tears.
Odysseus remains patient. He lets me weep angrily in his arms until the trembling slows and I am wrung out against him, my breath hitching on exhausted hiccups.
Finally, he takes his thumb and traces it across my cheek, taking my tears with it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Hearing this, I feel embarrassed. “It’s silly for me to be angry at you for not being in a bad dream.”
“You’re allowed to be angry at me.” He traces his thumb across my other cheek, wiping more tears. “If I’d been here, you wouldn’t have had memories from then that turned into nightmares tonight.”
I take a deep breath, feeling at last like my tears and his patience have made space in me for a new stillness.
“You’re here now,” I say.
“I’m here,” he says, “and they can’t ever hurt you again. I made sure of it. I’d do it all twenty times over again if I had to.”
On some unspoken signal, we both sink back into our bed. He keeps his arms wrapped around me and repeats, “I’m here.”
I close my eyes, safe in these layers of early summer darkness, and I curl up against my husband. “You’re here with us now. You’re home.”