I twisted my fingers in my lap again. “I don’t want to be like a baby. I want to know about the bad stuff. If I don’t know, what am I going to do when it happens to me when I grow up? Wait for some stupid prince to come save me now that my guardian monster is going away?”
Zeus laughed a great big laugh. “No need to grow up too fast, kid. You got lots of time and once you lose that innocence, you can’t get it back. Trust me.”
“I do,” I told him eagerly. “That’s why I don’t want you to go away and never see me again. Can I visit you where you’re going?”
“No, absolutely fuckin’ not.”
I thought about being hurt for a second and then I guessed, “Because bad people go to where you’re going?”
“Exactly.”
“But I want you to be my friend,” I tried to explain, reaching forward to put my little hand on top of his giant one resting on the bed.
He stared at our hands for a moment with gentle eyes and then looked up at me with a nice smile. “We are, kid.”
“Hurrah!” I whispered, because I was excited, but it felt like too important a moment to ruin with a shout.
“What are you doing in here?” Nurse Betsy said in a really high voice like the one my mum used when I was doing something gross or stupid.
She pushed back the curtain that separated Zeus’s bed from the rest of the big room and ran over to me, checking me over with her hands and glaring at my new friend.
“What is she doing in here with you? You’re in enough trouble as it is,” she hissed at him.
I tried to pull away from her, but she pressed me close to her chest, tucking my head into her neck as if that meant I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
Sometimes, adults are so dumb.
“Relax, Bets, she was wandering around down here and decided that I looked like a fuckin’ angel. She took a seat and we shot the shit for a minute. Nothing else.”
He didn’t seem that concerned about how angry Betsy was and it was kind of weird that they seemed to know each other. Betsy was tiny and pretty and soft. She didn’t look like she had it in her to be friends with Zeus.
“You never think,” she continued to hiss. “If someone else had come in here and seen you talking to a cute little girl, what do you think they would have done? You’re already going to freaking prison for manslaughter. Do you need a molestation charge on top of that?”
I couldn’t even see him but the air got weird and heavy and I knew without looking that Zeus was mad.
“Don’t even fuckin’ say that out loud. I’m a father for fuck’s sake, Bets. I’d never hurt a kid.”
Betsy relaxed a little against me and pet my hair. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m protective of this one. They think she’s got Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She’s been in here a lot and she’s curious, likes to roam.”
“Fuck,” Zeus said, soft and angry at the same time.
I wanted to reach out and pat him like I did when my dog growled. My grandpa had always warned my mum that I was attracted to dark and damaged things. I was just a kid but I was a smart one and I knew Zeus was both of those things.
A fallen angel. A monster, but a good one under all the scary.
I didn’t want someone like him to feel sad for me like everyone else.
“Told you I was dying,” I grumbled loudly enough that he could hear me even though my lips were up against Betsy’s boobies.
Her arms went loose and I pulled away to see Zeus staring at me with that soft face that made my tummy strange.
“You’re not gonna die, kid. Let’s stay positive, yeah?”
“You don’t know. You’re not a doctor.”
“No, but I’m Zeus. I throw lightning bolts and I’m king of all the gods. I know you ain’t gonna die and now all you gotta do to get better is believe me. Yeah?”
I stared at him. He had really pretty eyes with lashes thick and dark like a lady.
“I don’t wanna die,” I whispered.
Betsy squeezed me really hard but I didn’t take my eyes off Zeus.
He leaned as close to me as he could. Without meaning to, I reached up and put my hand on his fuzzy cheek. He flinched like I’d hurt him but then he said, “Bad things happen to good people, kid. Sucks that you’re sick at all. Tellin’ you now, you’re gonna get through this and even though I won’t be around to see it, I promise you, I know it. You said you trust me, right?”
I nodded mutely, stuck somewhere in his silver-dollar eyes.
“Then believe me,” he ordered.
“I believe you,” I whispered.
“Mr. Garro, we’ve been told you are healthy enough to be transferred to provincial detention,” a voice said over my shoulder and I jumped around to see three uniformed police officers come into our small curtained space.
My daddy followed.
“Daddy, no,” I cried out as the men came into the room and one of them began to tell Zeus something in police-talk about his rights. “Daddy, NO!”
“Louise, what in the world are you doing out of bed and with this man?” he demanded, jerking forward to grab my arm in a painful grip and tug me toward him. “Jesus, you never listen. Why can’t you do as you’re told?”
“Daddy, he’s my guardian monster,” I tried to explain. “You can’t take him away to a bad place or else no one will look after me.”
“Don’t be a baby, Louise. You have Nanny looking after you. Your mother and I pay her a very fine salary to look after you and Beatrice and teach you French.”
“Je deteste le francais!” I screamed. “And I’ll hate you too if you take Zeus away. He saved my life, Daddy!”
“He put it in danger in the first place,” my daddy yelled right in my face and I was so shocked that I stumbled backward and fell. Only my daddy’s hard grip on my arm kept me hovering over the floor. “I will not hear you defend him. Now, this nurse is going to take you back to your room where you will stay until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”
“Please, Daddy,” I whimpered because he was hurting my bad shoulder by holding me like that, and especially because I didn’t want my guardian monster to go away.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a champion.
“You’re hurtin’ her,” Zeus told my daddy from behind me and even though his voice was calm there was something mean in it that made me scared for my daddy.
Daddy sneered at him. “Mind your business. You seem to have more pressing matters at hand. How do those cuffs feel, Garro? You better get used to them.”
I gasped as I turned around to see Zeus’s big arms behind his back locked up in silver handcuffs.
“Daddy,” I cried again. “Please, don’t do this.”
“S’okay, kid. It’s not your dad that’s done anythin’, it’s me. When you do somethin’ bad, you have to pay penance for it, like in church, right?” I nodded. “Right. Well it’s the same with the law only you pay penance by going to prison.”
“Shut your mouth,” Daddy ordered him then turned to Betsy. “Take my daughter to bed and do your fucking job. Make sure she stays there.”