It hurts. Of course she should have expected that. The whole world was a sorry, painful place; happiness just an illusion, another rabbit to be pulled out of a hat, another false mirror. She trails her fingers along the anaemic green hospital blanket and tries not to think about the decision she knows she will have to make.
In a way, it's already been made for her- it was made the day her husband died. My husband, she thinks, rolling the phrase around on her tongue, tasting the infinite bitterness that has replaced the joy. It was decided the day her test came up positive, a line of searingly truthful blue announcing the presence of the minuscule embryo being incubated inside her. She'd been overjoyed, finally she would have a little somebody to call her own, completely her own. She would care for this child, she vowed, love it, nurture it.
How naïve. How very naïve. Only now does she realise, she will never be allowed to keep that baby, will still be denied the prize that she laboured nine long months for, under the disapproving glare of her father.
Still, she hears the first words he spoke to her when she told him the news.
You're not keeping it, Thalassa.
Thalassa Gramarye- the woman that girls all over the world would give their eyes to be; the beauty, the enigma, the dazzlingly glamorous talent- she doesn't exist here. This woman is afraid, alone, about to give up the one thing she really loves.
She hasn't seen the baby for hours, not since it was hauled from her, squawking and purple, then hurried away by a nurse in a blue uniform. Strange, that she can love this child so much, even though she has barely caught a glimpse of it.
Thalassa considers making a scene, crying and screaming, demanding to see her baby. She pictures herself running through the maternity ward, hospital gown flapping, finding her baby (it is a boy, she remembers) nestled in a plastic cot and picking up him up, taking him away to somewhere safe. Somewhere nobody knows her name, where it will be just the two of them and he can wake every morning knowing how much she loves him.
But this will not happen. In a small room, in a nondescript office on the other side of town, the papers are already being prepared that will separate them. There is the sound of a door creaking, of shoes tapping on the polished floor and the nurse she recognises form earlier bustles in, a small bundle in her arms.
"I thought you might like to hold him, ma'am, before...." the nurse begins and trails off abruptly. Thalassa is grateful for her delicacy, the one mercy that anybody has shown her for so very long.
She takes the baby, cradling him closely and feels him twist slightly to accomodate himself against her chest. He is perfect. Chestnut brown eyes that almost seem too big for his face, a fuzz of the same coloured hair covering his scalp and an expression of utter contentment. She can't bear that look on his face, can't bear the weight of the complete trust he has in her, knowing he will not belong to her for much longer.
There is a song, she recalls, one her own mother used to sing to her as a child, though the first verse is all she can remember. Thalassa strokes the baby's cheek gently and croons into the soft whorl of his ear.
I see the moon
The moon sees me
Under the shade of the old oak tree
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.....
He stirs, then settles down again, his eyelids drooping shut. She will have to name him, this precious boy- this will be her gift to him, the only one she can give.
Apollo. Your name is Apollo, Thalassa whispers; naming him for the sun god, for the light he radiates, the exponential goodness. She places a kiss tenderly on his forehead, rocking him carefully back and forth. And finally, she thinks, finally she understands what real magic is, nothing like the tricks she turns with Troupe Gramarye. She is holding it here right here in her arms. Thalassa slips one of the golden bracelets from her arm and hooks it over Apollo's. It is comically oversized but she doesn't care. My precious one.
A man in a suit enters, shattering the stillness of the moment and pushes a sheaf of papers at Thalassa. She signs them, but when the nurse tries to take Apollo from her, her arms don't seem to be able to let go. She clings on and baby Apollo wakes, crying noisily: the echo of the sound Thalassa wants to make but can't. They eventually wrest him away from her and bear him off down the hallway, off into the cruel unknown. She suddenly recalls the second verse of the lullaby and wonders why people sing such sad songs to their children, wonders how it is possible for her to be a mother one minute and nothing the next. She wonders if she will ever see him again.
Over the mountains
Over the sea
Back where my heart is longing to be
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.....