Does Truth Have a Moral? is UPDATED
After almost a year and a half of waiting... chapter 7 is out :)
It's early. Peeking through the blinds of a small New York apartment, mellow rays of sunlight flit across a kitchen's dusty cupboards. A glass of stale water rests on the counter. Where the home would usually be bustling about with a little family, there's silence.
At the table, there's a book drooping in the hands of a woman who looks like she's been reading for hours (she has). Everything about her whispers tired. The slouch of her spine, the bags under her eyes, the creases in her forehead. Sally Jackson used to be beautiful. While Percy would fight anyone who suggested otherwise, she knows the truth. She is no longer a pretty woman. She is drained.
The book in her hands paints her as an angel. (A word about my mother, before you meet her. Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world). Sally's chest had heaved at that line. Her baby always gave her too much credit. What kind of mother—let alone the "best person in the world”—loses a child for almost a year? Lets him slip into Tartarus? Sits in her home as he fights one war after another?
Paul slips into a chair next to her, breaking her unforgiving train of thought and quietly pushing an apple into Sally's hand. "You've been reading for hours. Percy will come home when it's safe."
"It should never be unsafe to come home," Sally snaps. Not a second later, the anger seeps away. This time, her voice is muffled in the fabric of her husband's sweater, strained against the tightness in her throat. "It should never be unsafe to come home."Â
There, in the stillness of her little kitchen, Sally Jackson cries for her baby boy. The one who begs her for blue pancakes every Saturday morning. Who washes the dishes from the couch with his weird brain-water abilities and curses when he inevitably gets soap everywhere. Who makes Zeus puns and laughs at the sky when it booms in anger. Who gives her credit for being the best person in the world, when really, that person is him.
That boy opens the front door about ten seconds later. "Mom?”
“Percy?” She whips her head around, and there he stands, Annabeth close behind. In an instant, Sally is on her feet and yanking her son to her, gripping him so tight her knuckles pale. They don't say anything, but the way mother and son cling to each other speaks volumes.
"I'm okay, mom," Percy finally whispers. "Are you?"
She only pulls him tighter, body trembling with soft sobs. Images of her little boy, twelve years old and plummeting from the Gateway Arch into the Mississippi River hundreds of feet below flash through her mind. She'll never let him go again. Not after knowing what happens when he leaves.
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