He hadn’t wept in eight long years, not since he had broken down at Catherine’s grave so long ago.
As he had then, he wept now.
It burst from him like a broken dam, shaking his whole body. He lowered his head and leaned it against hers and wept.
Maybe it was hours, maybe it was minutes, but he was sure that there was not a drop of water left in his entire body, and a despairing lethargy heavier than leadtook over his body and dragged him down into a merciful blackness.
He slept.
In dreams,miracles happened.
In dreams, the dead came back to life.
In dreams, you could hear them laugh again, hear their sweet voices, feel their touch. Soft, gentle fingers ran through your hair in a rhythmic, soothing motion.
In dreams, ah, so much was possible in dreams.
He did not want to wake up, if only to continue feeling her fingers on his head. Caressing, stroking, playing with his hair…
His eyes popped open.
He stopped breathing.
And he felt it, still, fingers caressing the top of his head…
He turned his head, slowly, carefully.
And met her gaze.
Tired, sweet, and full of love.
“I’m afraid I bumped my head again,” she whispered wryly, as if she’d merely banged it against a kitchen cabinet.
“Catherine,” he whispered, incredulous.
“My head is quite hard, you see, and not easily broken. I might forget a thing or two, at worst it might take me eight years to remember that I am married. Aside from that, I think I am perfectly fine.” She winced as she moved her head.
“My God.Catherine.”
And he burst into tears again.
Later,much later, after the doctor had been called and the bandage had been changed, she had been examined once more and told to remain in bed for observation. Though she declared that she was otherwise as fit as a fiddle, he climbed into bed and cradled her in his arms.
“I thought you’d died,” he said, his voice cracking.
“I am sorry. It was a stupid thing to do, to run across the road without looking.” She sighed. “I keep warning my children not to do that, and there I was, doing just that.”
She licked her dry lips. “Pray, a favour?”
“Anything.”
“Would you tell the children that I am well, and I shall be very cross if they stopped their studies and music practice because of me?”
He stared at her for one moment, blinked, then he said with a hoarse voice, “I will tell them, in these very words.”
He wentto Hector’s room.
The boy was in bed, his bedclothes on the floor, thumping a ball against the wall. It was a small, irregularly shaped ball made of a pig’s bladder wrapped in leather and tied with string.
