Chapter Text
Though her father was largely the center of Lia’s world, she did have a small circle of family. Taylor made a pretty good older cousin, taking her to laser tag or escape rooms whenever he was in town. Sending expensive, inappropriately dangerous gifts on holidays. He still didn’t believe Hermie about where she’d come from. Taylor’s going theory was that she was the product of an illicit affair with some actress that had dropped Lia off with a bundle of cash and a nondisclosure agreement.
Honestly, Hermie was content to let him think that.
Nick had started coming around here and there, probably desperate to salvage whatever familial relations he still could. He and Hermie don’t call each other brothers. Too familiar. But he was there for him, and Lia. Maybe he had learned from his mistakes, or maybe being an uncle was just less pressure than a dad. Probably both.
Jodie had reached out once or twice, half heartedly trying to make amends. Hermie had told him where to shove it. Though he had taken his name.
For whatever reason Lia had been created knowing herself as Thalia Foster, it was just more convenient if he matched. Plus he was getting more traction at casting calls as Herman Foster than he ever had as Hermie Unworthy.
Speaking of the Unworthys, he had ghosted them after they’d paid the last of his college tuition.
And Scam would meet his granddaughter over Hermie’s cold, elegantly positioned corpse.
Which still left the matter of Lia’s mother, who she was asking about more frequently and with greater demand. Oh, he could have fed her the same story about the actress that Taylor was so willing to believe, but that would just make more trouble down the road. Plus he’d be damned if he was going to sit there and tell his daughter that her mother hadn’t wanted her. That really only left one option.
“When you were a baby, your mom was flying over the Gobi desert when her plane went down. She dragged herself through the sands for three weeks, cannibalizing the bodies of the other passengers to stay alive, so desperate was she to see you again. But tragically, she was mauled by bears just before the search party found her.”
It was exactly what he would have wanted to be told in Lia’s position.
And Lia’s green eyes widened at the tale. It was perfect this way. The perfect parents. One who was here, and one preserved forever in the finality of death like a bug in amber. Who had wanted Thalia more than anything in the world and always would.
It put her mind at ease.
But it was also going to make things harder on everyone eventually. Because it wasn’t all that long afterwards that Lia was forced to reckon with the sudden reality of her daddy dating someone.