"You knew."
Ares and Eros both jumped to their feet.
"A-aphrodite," stammered Ares. "Please, let me explain." He reached toward her as if his wish was to comfort her, but she backed away from him in disgust.
"How long?" she said, the question stated more than asked. Eros noted a stillness in his mother's demeanor that disturbed him. It was as if his parents were rehearsing some demented play, and they had chosen to switch their roles - he the tragic paramour, she the weapon incarnate.
"How could I have told you?" Ares pleaded, opening his arms in desperation. "What if he did something to you?"
Visibly offended by his response, her gaze bore into him like a spear. "How long?"
"I wanted to tell you. I couldn't... I-" Ares dropped his head and closed his eyes. Even now that she knew, he couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud. "...Long enough," he finally said with a sigh.
Aphrodite turned to face Eros with the same cold stare she had given her lover. The hardness of her gaze sent a shiver down Eros' spine. He had seen her act this way before, with blasphemous minions or human being who spied on her while she was bathing, but this was the first time she had directed the behavior toward him. Eros knew what tended to come next, and he didn't want to be any part of it.
Before she could say anything, he raised his hands in self defense. "I only found out tonight," he blurted. "I swear. I didn't know."
"Leave us," she told Eros, and he quickly complied, backing away from his parents and rushing up the path toward the village. He had no idea where he was going, but if she wanted him out of earshot, then he was happy to go.
"I'm sorry, Aphrodite," Ares said as his son bounded up the hill. "I've wanted to tell you for so long, but whenever we were together, it always felt like I'd... I don't know... stolen you or something. I didn't want to ruin it. I'd decide that I was finally going to tell you, and then you'd come over... You'd look so happy to see me, so beautiful... I couldn't do it. I couldn't bare to crush you like that."
He waited a moment to see how Aphrodite would react. He'd hoped that in spite of everything, she would forgive him for not telling her, or at the very least, channel her anger toward Hephaestus where Ares thought it belonged. But she just stood before him motionless, staring him down, as if he'd said nothing at all.
"I know I should have told you," he continued. "Right when Hades told me, I should have told you. I don't know why I didn't. I'm so sorry."
Still, she said nothing.
The silence unnerved him.
They'd had some horrible arguments in the centuries they'd been together, which, looking back, should not have surprised either of them. The god of war and the goddess of love, together in a relationship sustained almost entirely by the passion they held for one another. He knew, with respect to battle, that passion unchecked held the potential for self-destruction, but when he and Aphrodite were angry with one another, they both had a tendency to fall into its trap. From his perspective, there were many things he'd said that he regretted - some he still regretted. But at least she'd fought back after he'd said them.
This was an entirely new kind of torture. On one level, he wondered if this silence was on purpose - he'd failed to tell her about Harmonia, so perhaps she was punishing him with silence. But this silence was too cold, as if she had drifted away...
"Please, Aphrodite!" he shouted, his voice breaking, "I can't stand this! Say something, please!"
Her jaw trembled, as if she were holding herself back.
"She was my daughter, too, Aphrodite!" he continued. "Do you think I was happy when I found out what that monster did to her? And there you were, still living in his house, eating at his table, sleeping in his bed." His face crinkled with disgust. "Every time you went back to that house, I thought that it would be the last time I would ever see you again. If he could do that to Harmonia, when she had never done anything wrong in her entire life, I don't even want to imagine what he would have done to you, the person he so clearly despised! And what could I have done to stop it? I would never have guessed that those stupid presents could have killed her. It was just some dinky jewelry and some flimsy fabric... I didn't even know... I never... I..." Sobbing, he fell into a heap on the log where he had been sitting before.
Ares heard the footsteps of someone running down the path, but he didn't look up. I don't care who it is, he thought. His daughter was really gone. Nothing mattered anymore.
"He's coming this way," he heard Eros pant a short distance away. "I think he heard you."
The wall Ares had kept between himself and his grief over his daughter had finally given way. He could barely register what was going on around him, let alone do something about it. He stayed on the log, hoping in the back of his mind that the tide would suddenly come in and overtake him.
Eros edged carefully around Aphrodite and leaned down toward his father. "Dad," he shouted, trying to get Ares' attention, "we need to go! Now!"
"No," ordered Aphrodite, to the surprise of both of them, "stay."
Eros looked back and forth between his mother and his father. Neither of them were moving, and after the things that Ares had told him about Hephaestus, he was sure that something horrible was about to happen. If they both wanted to stay, then they had clearly lost their minds.
But it was too late to move now. Hephaestus was already at the top of the hill, hurrying as fast as he could toward the beach. No matter where they went, Hephaestus would know that they had been there. It didn't matter now.
"Aphrodite!", they heard him exclaim. "Aphrodite! Wait!"
Oh no, thought Eros. This is it.
Aphrodite didn't turn to face him. She continued watching Ares like a vulture looming over its dying prey. Ares was breathing heavily, visibly trying to pull himself together, but failing. He had hidden his face in his hands, but his tears were still falling onto his clothes, the drops glistening in the moonlight.
"Aphrodite!" Hephaestus cried again as he reached the end of the path. "It's not what you think! Please let me explain!"
"What is there to explain?" grunted Ares, his head still in his hands.
Hephaestus placed himself between Ares and Aphrodite so she would have to look at him. "Please," he said softly. "Can we talk about this? Alone?"
"About what?" she asked in a monotone voice marked with disdain.
"Aphrodite, please don't do this." What Eros had believed to be a prelude to divine fury, and what Ares had interpreted as a new, vengeful silence, Hephaestus saw as something painfully familiar. The short answers, the emotionless reactions, the deliberate evasiveness - this had been the full extent of their relationship for almost as long as they had been together. Hephaestus' had charted these waters before, and their brief respite of late made their return all the more unbearable. "Not again," he whispered, feeling defeated. "Please. Don't pull away from me again."
Ares wiped his face and, still feeling wobbly, pushed himself up off the log as he spoke. "Don't you dare order her around," he bellowed. "Why would she want anything to do with a piece of trash like you?"
Hephaestus rolled his eyes. This again? "This has nothing do you with you," he mumbled.
"It has everything to do with me!" Ares shouted, forcibly turning him around. "She was my daughter, you know."
First Aglaea, Hephaestus thought, and now this. "What are you talking about?" he asked, exasperated. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was a drunk Ares bent on reclaiming his property.
"What?" continued Ares, getting in Hephaestus' face. "You didn't know? Or you didn't know I knew?" He may have been afraid of Hephaestus before, but now that everything was out in the open, he didn't care anymore. Let him try to hurt me, Ares thought. Let him see what it feels like to be at the other end of my wrath.
This was ridiculous, thought Hephaestus. What is he doing here, anyway? Why can't everyone just leave him and his family alone? All he wanted was a vacation with his wife, and if no one had interfered, it would have been perfect. "Seriously," he asked, turning back to Aphrodite, "what is he talking about?"
"About Harmonia," she replied, looking straight into his eyes. By her tone, it seemed that she expected the words to wound him, but by Hephaestus' reaction, they seemed to miss their mark.
"About Harmonia?" he repeated. "Wait...", he muttered, his face turning white. "Did he say she 'was'his daughter? Is this what you were talking about back at the house?"
"Oh come on," said Ares with a laugh born more from stress than humor. "This is just pathetic! Surely you're not going to keep going with the act now! We all know! Even Eros knows! Come off it already!"
"Know what? What is going on, Aphrodite? What happened to her?" Hephaestus' eyes darted between Ares, Aphrodite, and Eros as if he were desperately searching for an answer in their faces.
Watching Hephaestus grasp for answers, it occurred to Eros that this might not be an act, that he might legitimately be concerned about Harmonia. "Do you really not know?"
"No, I don't know," Hephaestus replied, happy that at least someone was talking to him. "Is she OK?"
"She's dead," said Aphrodite.
"No... No... that's impossible," sputtered Hephaestus. "She's a goddess... I thought I made sure that she... No, that can't possibly..."
Ares' face turned bright red. He was about to lose it. "Have you ever been punched in the face by a god before?" he barked. "Because I'll do it. I don't care who you are or what you can do to me. I'll do it."
"Sit down," Aphrodite commanded.
Everyone fell silent for awhile. To Eros, Hephaestus looked like he was in shock, as if he were calculating in his head the improbability of what he just heard, while Ares was back to sitting on the log, seemingly disappointed that Aphrodite didn't want him to tear Hephaestus apart.
After awhile, Eros noticed that Aphrodite wasn't watching them anymore, but instead was eying the ship that she and Hephaestus had used to sail to the island.
"Mom," Eros said hesitantly. "What are you thinking?"
Aphrodite pressed her lips together as if deep in thought.
"You have a plan, don't you?" he whispered to her.
She nodded, still looking at the ship. Then she turned to Eros and smoothed back a lock of his hair like she used to when he was a little boy, whenever she was about to leave Mount Olympus for the day.
With a resolved look in her eyes, she simply told him, "I'm leaving."
As Ares, Hephaestus, and Eros watched, too surprised to move, Aphrodite walked over to the ship, boarded it, and left.
