Goddesses Don't Get Sick (19 page)

Epilogue.

FOUR YEARS LATER…

Cassandra had always known she was different.

If asked (not that anyone would think to, mind you), she would not be able to tell them how, or why she knew. Only that she did.

It seemed obvious to her that Jason wasn’t her father, although she called him Daddy because she knew he liked to believe that it was true (even though he would always be Jason in her mind).

She knew where her mother was, and could even sense her presence and thoughts if she tried, though it gave her a headache. Mommy was awful far away.

And she knew who, and what, her real father was. She remembered being held by him, just after she was born, remembered his pretty wings with the red tips.

She had wings. She could feel them. No one could see them, but she knew they could sense it when she didn’t want people to come close and wrapped them around her like a shield.

She couldn’t fly with them, though. Not like Daddy can. She was going to try once, when she was three; she climbed to the top of the stairs and was going to jump off the railing, but the nerve escaped her.

Daddy came to visit her sometimes at night. She knew when he was there, even when she couldn’t see him. At first, he used to just sit and watch her, but he wouldn’t say anything. Cassandra had asked Mommy about this one time and—in her own, wordless way—Mommy had told her what to say.

So that night she waited, barely able to speak in full sentences, and when she felt Daddy in the room, she spoke to him.

“Mommy misses you, Daddy.”

Daddy had cried that night. Cassandra didn’t like to see him cry, but she was happy that he started visiting her more, and talking to her after that night.

They talked once about when she was born. Cassandra knew what she’d done to Mommy, and felt bad for it, but when she tried to tell Daddy she was sorry, he just shook his head, and smiled softly, and said it wasn’t her fault.

Cassandra knew she had a job to do when she grew up, she just didn’t know
what
, exactly. She asked Daddy once, but he said she’d know when the time came.

She supposed she would. She supposed she had to help someone or something. She hoped it was a bunny. She’d found a sick bunny once, in the back yard, and had brought it inside to show Jason. He’d helped her nurse it and look after it, but it had died the next day. Jason told her it was just the way things were, and that everything happened for a reason.

Cassandra just wondered why he didn’t believe that himself.

It was Father’s Day tomorrow. At preschool today, they’d told everyone to make a card for their daddies, and to draw a picture of them on it. Cassandra had drawn Daddy, but Teacher told her that her daddy didn’t have wings or dark hair. Teacher told Cassandra to start again.

So she did, and she drew a picture of her and Jason, and she wrote her name on the other side and gave it to Jason. He’d smiled and hugged her tightly, and put the picture on the fridge.

Cassandra sat in bed and waited for Jason to go to sleep, so that Daddy would come see her. She looked down at the picture she wanted to give him. The one Teacher had told her to stop working on.

She’d finished it when Teacher wasn’t looking, and had written on the back, labouring over her childish handwriting to form the words:

“Happy Father’s Day Daddy, luv Cassie.”

She hoped Daddy would like it. She hoped it would make him smile, like he did sometimes when he talked about Mommy, and how pretty she was.

Daddy was often sad, and she wished she could make him happy again, like she knew he’d been with Mommy. She missed Mommy, and wished they could go visit her together.

Nibbling her lip impatiently, Cassandra jiggled in her bed and waited for Daddy, hugging the card close. She’d drawn all of them on it. Mommy and Daddy and her in the middle, all smiling happily because they were all together again.

Cassandra couldn’t wait for that to happen. She just wished she knew when (
if?
) it would…

She hoped Daddy would like the picture…