Chapter 22: Terms for My Father

Hazel's POV

Ronan walked me to the ford and stopped at the water's edge.

"I'll wait here," he said.

"You don't have to."

"I know." He kissed my forehead. "I'm waiting anyway."

I crossed alone.

The Silver Dawn burial ground lay on the slope above the pack house, behind a low stone wall and a stand of birches.

My father was already there.

He was sitting on the wall beside my mother's stone with a paper bag of bread in his lap.

He wore the same coat.

He had rented a room over the bakery, the head baker had told me, and he had not left it for four days except to come here.

He stood up when he saw me.

"Hazel."

"Sit down, Dad."

He sat.

I stood in front of my mother's grave for a while and read her name.

ELLEN BRAMLEY. BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.

She had died when I was nine, of a fever that took two days.

"I told her something at the end," my father said. "She asked me to take care of you."

"You did."

"I took too much care."

"Yes," I said. "You did."

I turned and looked at him.

He looked smaller than he had at the ford.

The gray had come in at his temples and he hadn't shaved, and his hands, which had always been steady, kept moving on the paper bag.

"I haven't decided if I forgive you," I said.

"I'm not asking."

"I know you're not. That's why I'm here."

His eyes came up.

"I've thought about it for a week," I said. "I thought about shutting you out. I could. I'd be right to, and nobody would blame me."

"No."

"But if I do, you'll sit in that room over the bakery and be sorry for the rest of your life. And I'd be sitting in my kitchen, being right at you."

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