When Persephone Stopped Waiting

Summary

My husband Hades gave another woman my birthday celebration.

Then he gave her my mother’s brooch.

Then he let our son call her home.

Nympha was the flower spirit who had grown up beside him. The healers said a curse was killing her, and she had only six months left before she disappeared forever.

Hades said he only wanted her final days to be free of regret.

So I was expected to be generous.

Even when our five-year-old son, Eren, curled up beside her at the hearth and whispered that she felt more like home than I did, I still told myself he was only a child.