“His aide informed us your father was taking a nap and had only been asleep about an hour when you got there. He didn’t check on him because your father usually naps for at least an hour and a half in the afternoon. Can you please take some nourishment?”
I stare down at the tray on the bed. Toast with butter and strawberry jam. God, he’s perfect. So perfect.
I nod my head and he sits on the bed beside me, fucking making me pieces of toast, smearing them with the butter and jam and handing them to me so I can eat. I do eat. First,because my children deserve that from me, and second, because I don’t want Sebastian to worry more. It’s funny the way we make concessions for those we love when we’d just as quickly sabotage ourselves.
“I miss him.”
“I know. I do too.”
I hiccup out a sob, staring down at the red jam. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything,” he says with such sincerity my heart quakes.
“Will you bring new furniture into the third floor of the library? I want that room back. I don’t want to walk in there and feel Samil, and right now, I still do.”
“Done. I’ll redo the entire floor of that library. You won’t recognize it when it’s finished.”
“I fucking love you.” I stare up at him through watery eyes. “I do. I love you so much and I’m so heartbroken over this and I want to tell you that I’ll be okay, but I’m not sure I will be.”
He cups my jaw, his gray-blue eyes soft and adoring as they gaze into mine. “You’re not supposed to get over it and you’re not supposed to be okay. I lost my father when I was fifteen and I remember finding him in a similar way to how you found your father. There isn’t a day that passes when I don’t wish he were still alive and I could seek his guidance. But, I can tell you, your father loved you. You were his world. And though his mind had been slipping, you were what kept his heart and memories alive.”
I lean against his chest, tears pouring one after the other down my cheeks. I stare down at my wrist where I got my tattoo those months ago. It’s his words. My father’s words. “Choose your heart and follow its passion.”
Sebastian’s thumb grazes over the black-inked words. “And have you?” he asks, almost nervous for my answer.
Have I? “Yes. I chose my heart. I chose you and the children and became your queen. You’re all my passion.”
He tilts my chin and kisses my lips. “You’re not alone.”
He said those words to me when he picked me up a second time in Tourin outside my father’s residence. And much like that night, I cry in all the ways I haven’t allowed myself to cry for so long. Not since that night. I cry in all the ways I need to cry, but as with that night, I’m not crying alone.
Sebastian is here with me. Holding me. Telling me he loves me and making sure I’m breathing and drinking and eating. No one has cared for me this way since I was a young girl.
And that realization, that truth, slows my tears. I don’t have to do this by myself, I don’t have to suffer in this grief alone, and the relief I feel in that is overwhelming.
He tilts my chin and kisses the tip of my nose, offering me the sweetest of smiles that eases some of the relentless ache in my chest.
“What can I do to help?”
And much the way I said it that night. “There is no helping it, but you’re doing everything I need you to right now.”
“Okay,” he acquiesces without agreeing. “Tomorrow I’m going to force you out of bed and into the shower. After that, you and I will sit down and make decisions for his funeral.”
I nod, and though part of me wants to argue, this is what I need. It’s what I needed after my father fell and broke his wrist and I felt powerless. I need Sebastian’s control. I need his strong hand. But I love how he’s not taking over. How he’s forcing me to regain my own strength.
“I want him cremated, same as my mother was. I want to sprinkle his ashes into the ocean since that’s what we did with hers. I want them reunited.”
“Do we have to fly to Boston to do this?”
I shake my head, already knowing that’s not something I want to do. “I think a seaside trip for all of us will suffice.”
“You pick the day and it’ll happen.”
“Does everyone get this?”
“What?” he asks, his voice almost amused by my question.
“This sort of love?”
