Portrait In Death

"Doesn't matter." Already feeling crowded, Eve waved her fork.

"But there's so many more." He gri

"I can't," she said after a moment.

"Neither can I, though I appear to have them. They've been married nearly sixty years now, and they're hearty. They live now in a cottage over the hill to the west. They didn't want the big house, I'm told, when their children were grown and married, so it came to Sinead as she was the one who wanted it most."

He paused, and she said nothing. Just waited for him to finish.

"They don't want anything from me." Still puzzled by it, he broke a slice of toasted brown bread in two. "Nothing that I expected them to want. There's none of this, 'Well now, we could use a bit of the ready since you've so much and we're in the way of being family.' Or 'You owe us for all the years that've gone by.' Not even the 'Who the hell do you think you are, coming around here, you son of a murdering bastard.' I'd expected any of those things, would have understood that. Instead it's 'Ah, there you are, it's Siobhan's boy. We're glad to see you.'"

With a shake of his head, he set the toast down again. "What do you do with that?"

"I don't know. I never know how to act, or feel, when somebody loves me. I always feel inadequate, or just stupid."

"We never had much practice at it, did we, you and I?" He covered her hand with his, rubbed it as though he needed the feel of her skin against his. "Two lost souls. If you're done there, I'd like to show you something."

"I'm overdone." She pushed the plate away. "She made enough food for half the residents of Sidewalk City."

"We'll walk some of it off," he said and took her hand.

"I'm not going back with the cows. I don't love you that much."

"We'll leave the cows to their cow business."

"Which is what, exactly? No, I don't want to know," she decided as he pulled her out the door. "I get these weird and scary pictures in my head. What's that thing out there?" she asked, pointing.

"It's called a tractor."

"Why's that guy riding around with the cows? Don't they have remotes, or droids, or something?"

He laughed.

"You laugh"-and it was good to hear it-"but there are more cows than people around here. What if the cows got tired of hanging around in the field and decided, hey,we want to drive the tractor, or live in the house, or wear clothes for a while. What then?"

"Remind me to dig outAnimal Farm from the library when we get home, and you'll find out. Here now." He took her hand in his once more, wanting the link. "They planted this for her. For my mother."

Eve studied the tree, the lush green leaves and sturdy trunk and branches. "It's… a nice tree."

"They knew, in their hearts, she was dead. Lost to them. But there was no proof. Trying to find it, to find me when I was a baby, one of my uncles was almost killed. They had to let go. So they planted this for her, not wanting to put up a stone or marker. Just the cherry tree, that blooms in the spring."

Looking at it again, Eve felt something click inside her. "I went to a memorial for one of the victims last night. This job, you go to too many memorials and funerals. The flowers and the music, the bodies laid out on display. People seem to need that, the ritual, I guess. But it always seems off to me. This seems right. This is better."

He watched her now as she studied his mother's tree. "Is it?"

"The flowers just die, you know? And the body gets buried or burned. But you plant a tree and it grows, and it lives. It says something."

"I can't remember her. I've searched back, making myself half-mad trying, somehow thinking if I could remember something, some small thing, it would make it better. But I can't. And that's that. So this tree here, it's something solid, and more comforting to me than a stone marker. If there's more than whatever time we have bumbling around here, then she knows I came. That you came with me. And that's enough."

When they went back in, Sinead was in the kitchen clearing breakfast away. Roarke walked to her, touched a hand to her shoulder.

"Eve needs to go back. I need to go with her."

"Of course." She lifted her hand, touched his lightly. "Well then, you'd best go up and get your things. I'll have just a moment here with your wife, if she doesn't mind."

Trapped, Eve slid her hands into her pockets. "Sure. No problem."

"I'll only be a minute."

"Ah…" Eve searched for something appropriate to say when she was alone with Sinead. "It means a lot to him that you let him stay."

"It means a lot to me, to us, to have had this time with him, however short. It was difficult for him to come, to tell us what he'd learned."

"Roarke's no stranger to doing the difficult."

"So I gather, and neither would you be, if I'm a judge." She wiped her hands on a cloth, set it aside. "I was watching him from the window before, sort of gathering up pictures of him you might say. Ones I can share with Siobhan when I speak with her. I talk to her in my head," Sinead explained at Eve's blank look. "And right out loud now and then when no one's about. So I'm gathering up my pictures, and there's one I'll never forget. The way he looked-the change in his face, in his body, in the whole of him when he saw it was you. The love was naked on him when he saw it was you, and it's one of the loveliest things I've ever seen. It's a fine picture to have in my head, for he's my sister's child, grown man or no, and I want what's good for him. You seem to be."

"We seem to be good for each other, God knows why."

She smiled now, bright and pretty. "Sometimes it's best not to know all the reasons. I'm glad you came, so I had a chance to look at you, and see the two of you together. I want more chances with him, and you'll be a large part of letting that happen, or preventing it."

"Nobody prevents Roarke."

"Nobody," Sinead said with a nod, "but you."

"I wouldn't do anything to get in the way of something he needed. He needed to come here. He'll need to come back. Maybe you weren't looking in the right place when he introduced me to you, when he looked at you. He already loves you."

"Oh." Her eyes filled up before she could stop them, and she blinked, wiping at them quickly when she heard him coming back in. "I'll fix you some food for the journey."

"Don't trouble." Roarke touched her shoulder again. "There's plenty of it on the shuttle. I've made arrangements to have the car I drove here picked up."

"Well that'll be sad news for my Liam, who thinks it's as fine and fancy a machine as ever built. I've something for you." She reached in her pocket, closing her fingers over the treasure as she turned to him. "Siobhan didn't take all her things when she went to Dublin. She was going to come back and get them, or send for them, but, well, one thing and another."

She pulled out a thin chain and the rectangle of silver that dangled from it. "It's just a trinket, but she wore it often. You see this is her name, in Ogham script. I know she'd want you to have it."

Sinead pressed it into Roarke's hand, closed his fingers around it. "Safe journey then, and… ah, damn it."

The tears beat her, plopped onto her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around him. "Come back, will you? Come back sometime, and keep well until you do."

"I will." He closed his eyes, breathed her in. Vanilla and wild roses. He murmured in Gaelic as he pressed his lips to her hair.

She gave a watery laugh, pulled back to swipe at her cheeks. "I don't have that much of the Gaelic."

"I said thank you for showing me my mother's heart. I won't forget her, or you."

"See that you don't. Well, be off then before I start blubbering all over you. Good-bye to you, Eve, keep yourself safe."