THAT NIGHT I could not stop thinking of it: Briseis’ and my child. I saw stumbling legs, and dark hair and the mother’s big eyes. I saw us by the fire, Briseis and I, and the baby, playing with some bit of wood I had carved. Yet there was an emptiness to the scene, an ache of absence. Where was Achilles? Dead? Or had he never existed? I could not live in such a life. But Briseis had not asked me to. She had offered me all of it, herself and the child and Achilles, too.
I shifted to face Achilles. “Did you ever think of having children?” I asked.
His eyes were closed, but he was not sleeping. “I have a child,” he answered.
It shocked me anew each time I remembered it. His child with Deidameia. A boy, Thetis had told him, called Neoptolemus. New War. Nicknamed Pyrrhus, for his fiery red hair. It disturbed me to think of him—a piece of Achilles wandering through the world. “Does he look like you?” I had asked Achilles once.
Achilles had shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”
“Do you wish you could see him?”
Achilles shook his head. “It is best that my mother raise him. He will be better with her.”
I did not agree, but this was not the time to say so. I waited a moment, for him to ask me if I wished to have a child. But he did not, and his breathing grew more even. He always fell asleep before I did.
He frowned, his eyes still closed. “Like her?”
“Enjoy her,” I said. “You know.”
His eyes opened, more alert than I had expected. “What does this have to do with children?”
“Nothing.” But I was obviously lying.
“Does she wish to have a child?”
“That is good,” he said, eyelids drooping once more. Moments passed, and I was sure he was asleep. But then he said, “With you. She wants to have a child with you.” My silence was his answer. He sat up, the blanket falling from his chest. “Is she pregnant?” he asked.
There was a tautness to his voice I had not heard before.
His eyes dug into mine, sifting them for answers.
“Do you want to?” he asked. I saw the struggle on his face. Jealousy was strange to him, a foreign thing.
He was hurt, but did not know how to speak of it. I felt cruel, suddenly, for bringing it up.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so. No.”
“If you wanted it, it would be all right.” Each word was carefully placed; he was trying to be fair.
I thought of the dark-haired child again. I thought of Achilles.
“It is all right now,” I said.
The relief on his face filled me with sweetness.
theartofmadeline
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