If I Had Words

Back to chapter menu     
Chapter 57      Chapter 59

Eros was visible again and was leaning against a tree in his mother’s garden. It had been several days and he should have left the party, like some of the other guests. But, he wasn’t sure where to go. He would usually have gone back to his own home, but the thought of returning felt — he searched for the feeling — different now that Psyche was gone. 

“There you are,” a gentle voice said.

Eros looked up. 

Harmonia. 

She had found him. She always seemed to find him. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hide. After my performance earlier, I thought it best if I stayed out of the way,” Eros said.

“You’re never in the way, Eros,” Harmonia said. “You’re always exactly where you should be.”

Then why was he still at his mother’s palace? Why was he struggling to go home?

“I don’t know, Harmonia,” he said, looking away.

He wasn’t sure what else to say. That summed up everything.

“So,” Harmonia said casually, “you’re married now.”

Eros looked at her. She was almost as beautiful as Psyche. And she had the same loving way of caring for other people. 

“I don’t think marriage is for me,” Eros said, looking away again.

“Marriage isn’t easy, Eros,” Harmonia said. “It’s not easy for anyone. I used to wonder how the Goddess of Harmony could struggle with her own marriage. But with time, I figured things out. Kadmos and I both did. 

“What’s the trouble with you and Psyche?”

“It’s complicated,” Eros said. 

“Go on,” she said.

Eros sighed.

“Mother already explained that she was upset with Psyche and that she wanted me to shoot her and make her miserable. But after watching Psyche for some time, I had this feeling that Mother was wrong. Psyche didn’t need to be tormented, she needed to be protected,” he said.

“Protected from what?” she asked.

“From everybody. From Mother, obviously, who seemed to stop at nothing to ensure Psyche was punished. And truly, Mother has punished her enough. She took away all of her suitors and made Psyche feel worthless. It was painful to watch her sisters gloat and add to the strain,” he said.

He shuddered at everything they had made her do. All of the primping and preening, all of the pretending and pleasing that women thought men wanted. 

“The people of her world didn’t help much either, from what I could see,” Eros continued. “They were constantly taking from her. They leaned on her too much and gave her their mountain of problems. She needed to rest.”

“What happened?” Harmonia said. 

“I made that agreement with Mother. As long as Psyche was kept in the dark, she could remain with me,” Eros said.

“What was it like? Being married?” Harmonia asked. 

“It all worked pretty well for a while,” Eros said. “It was interesting watching a mortal adjust to our world. She is unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. She isn’t prideful at all. She could have had anything, she could have created anything, but she always kept things simple. I had to help her expand her vision of something better, otherwise she would have been content to live in a cottage like a common villager.”

“Interesting,” Harmonia said. 

“She even appreciates the unappreciated and ugly,” he said. “She added in weeds and insects. She creates a perfect balance among her creations. Even the elements loved her.” 

“Sounds like someone I would appreciate,” Harmonia said.

“Oh, you would love her, Harmonia,” Eros said, getting swept up in his feelings as he described Psyche. “She is absolutely incredible. She loved me without knowing who I was, without ever looking at me. It felt — different — to have such a woman love me like that.” 

“Sounds wonderful,” she said.

“It was until she chose to go back,” he said.

“Chose to go back?” Harmonia asked.

“She had a choice and she chose to go back with her people,” he said.

Harmonia considered for a moment.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I asked her not to look at me. That was the only way. She knew that if she looked at me, we wouldn’t be able to be together. She knew the consequences and she chose to look at me,” Eros said.

“Are you sure you’re not oversimplifying it just a little?” Harmonia said.  

“What am I missing?” Eros said, a bit annoyed. “I asked her to trust me. I loved her. I gave her everything a mortal woman could ask for. I had done everything I could to keep us together. She knew what she was doing and she did it anyway.”  

“This whole arrangement was never fair to begin with,” Harmonia said, her voice soothing. “A marriage cannot survive the dark. At some point everything in the dark must be placed squarely in the light. Marriage is not a place for hiding, Eros. It is a place for shining.”

Eros stood quietly for a moment. This was a completely different puzzle to sort out. 

“Think about it,” Harmonia said. “Would you have been able to completely trust her? Could you have lasted, never knowing her identity?”

Eros frowned. He knew he couldn’t have lasted.

“Marriage is about being united, it’s about being equal, is it not?” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said. Eros was the God of what happened in the bedroom, not what happened in the moments in between. 

“Well, marriage comes in all sorts of forms,” she said. “But the best marriage, the kind of marriage we should all strive for, is one where we are treated equally. And when united, there isn’t any obstacle which can’t be overcome. 

“Including our Mother.”

“What do you mean?” Eros said, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, it was good of you to save Psyche from Mother. You did your best and made an arrangement that made sense. But it was built to fail. No marriage can survive terms like that,” Harmonia said. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Eros said.

“I think you should at least go and visit her,” Harmonia said. 

“Visit who??” Phobos asked, coming up and putting his arm around Eros’s shoulders. 

Deimos was close behind. 

“Nobody,” Eros said, instinctively shrugging off his brother’s arm.

“I gotta say, Eros, that was a beautiful thing to watch,” Phobos said, keeping his arm firmly around Eros. “I never thought I’d see the day when our mother would feel fear like that — ever.”

“A real thing of beauty in my opinion,” Deimos said. 

Then he laughed. 

“Get it, ‘beauty’? Mother is the Goddess of Beauty, but it wasn’t literally a thing of beauty like our Mother would make it. It’s just beautiful to us because we’re the gods of fear, so, you know, ‘a thing of beauty’,” Deimos said.

Eros shook his head. It wasn’t even funny, but Eros found his lips turning up into a small smile anyway.

“You’re not making any sense,” Eros said.

“We don’t have to make sense,” Phobos said, bringing Eros in for a wrestle. Eros couldn’t help a bigger smile as he blocked Phobos’s attacks and tried to push his brother away. 

The two brothers continued to wrestle as Deimos stepped closer to Harmonia.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Deimos said quietly to their sister.

“I don’t know,” she frowned. 

Deimos looked curious.

“What is it?” Deimos asked.

“Eros’s wife,” Harmonia said. “I have this feeling.”

“You think he really loves her?” Deimos asked.

“I do,” Harmonia said. “But there’s something else. It’s a different kind of love. Something new for him.”

Deimos raised an eyebrow and nodded. He usually didn’t concern himself with such emotions. But it had been quite interesting watching Eros and his mother spar like that. 

Eros finally managed to push Phobos away well enough to give himself a chance to catch his breath. Phobos was smiling, satisfied, and they both joined the group. 

They all stood looking at each other for a moment. 

Opposites in a lot of ways, there was a new sense of love and contentment among them. 

“Family, am I right?” Phobos said, breathing heavily.

“I guess so,” Eros said, still catching his breath too. 

“I think you should go,” Deimos said.

“Should go where?” Eros said. 

“I think you should at least see this Psyche,” Deimos said. “See how she’s doing.”

Eros looked at his siblings. They all looked seriously back at him. 

Eros knew his sister loved him, but it was strange to have his brothers’ support as well. Had the humiliation of his mother really earned him that much respect and approval? Or was it something else?

“You need to find out, Eros,” Harmonia said. “Whether Mother was right to do what she did. It might be that you are both suffering needlessly.”

Could he go after Psyche? Try to bring her back against his mother’s wishes? He doubted it would go well. 

She was sure to object. 

She was sure to do worse. 

Eros shrugged. 

Maybe it couldn’t hurt to at least check in on her. 

At the very least, make sure she was well. 

Back to chapter menu     
Chapter 57      Chapter 59