Page 49

It wasn’t fair.

I didn’t say what I wanted to say and said something else instead. “I love you.”

She smiled slightly. “I love you too.”

In light of the fire, I held her hand and tried to cherish these last days or weeks because they were all I had left. The boys were playing in the other room, not quite old enough to understand how profoundly their lives were about to change.

She whispered to me. “I want you to move on…when I’m gone.”

My eyes stayed on her fingers, and I inhaled a painful breath. “Don’t…”

“I just want you to know you have my blessing…so you never have to wonder.”

The idea of anyone else when there was only one woman I wanted for all my life made it hurt more. “I said, don’t.”

The house was quiet except for the crackling flames.

Anya was asleep in our bedroom. The boys had finally settled down after all the excitement of having their uncle down for a visit.

My brother sat across from me, never one to say much, but definitely with nothing to say now.

Because there was nothing to say.

“You know you’re welcome to live with me after it happens. I can help with the kids?—”

“I don’t need help raising my sons.” She’d been sick for weeks, and being a father was no hardship at all. They were good kids who helped around the house and took care of their mother when I wasn’t around. They were a blessing to me the day they were born, and they were a blessing to me now.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Then how can I help?”

I stared at the fire as the emptiness in my chest started to fester. “You can’t.”

He watched the side of my face, his hands together in his lap. “You should move into the village. The boys will have other kids to play with. Other things to distract them.”

“This is where we wanted to raise them.” I wanted them to live off the land, to stand strong on their own two feet. To appreciate nature and the gifts that it granted us. We traveled into the village on occasion. “I will continue to do that.”

Gael gave a slow nod. “I’ll stay until it happens…unless you’d like me to leave.”

It was the one thing I wanted. Not to be alone when my wife died. So I could walk through the forest and grieve without my sons having to watch their father succumb to the wave of despair that would cripple me. “I would appreciate that.”

I dropped the carcass on the table in the butcher’s shop.

He looked it over and gave me a quote. “Fifty sickle.”

“Done.”

He put the coin on the table, and I pocketed it.

Gael had stayed behind with the boys so I could bring this to market, collect whatever coin I could to buy my wife a few things that would make her happy. Fresh flowers, her favorite cookies, a couple books…even though she wouldn’t have time to read them.

The butcher seemed to catch the despair in my eyes the way someone caught the reflection of the sun in a window. “How is she?”

“It’s almost time,” I said.

He gave a slow nod. “I’m sorry.”