Glory, Odysseus whispers in her ear, glory and the gods. He thinks that might make sufficient excuse from the years he's spent from her side, twenty years gone without nothing to show but a stranger of a son and an olive bed that's remained intact against all reasonable expectations, two decades choking on guilt and grief and gruesome horrors all of his own doing.
She turns, though, to face him as she traces his lips with her thumb; "Blood," she says gently, "makes for the best lies"--and he knows, as ever, Penelope knows him all too well.