“I didn’t want to tell you.”

Trez opened his mouth to ask why, but that would be two rhetoricals in as many minutes, wouldn’t it.

“Well, I’m glad you did.” Trez reached into his back pocket and took out his silk handkerchief. Pressing it to the wound, he found himself choking up. “It gives me something to live for.”

iAm took a deep breath. “I want you to be the blessing one for her.”

“It’s a daughter?” Trez blinked. And then found himself smiling again. “A daughter… and yes, I would be her blessing one. I am honored.”

“I would have no one else but you do it.”

They sat there for a while, as the wound sealed up, and Trez was amazed. For the moments as he held his brother’s hand in his own, and tended to the injury, and smiled at the good fortune that had befallen maichen and iAm, he felt something in the center of his chest that relieved the pain.

This is real, he thought to himself. And this moment… this present… was the first piece of his life since his shellan’s death that didn’t hurt.

A next generation, born out of love, born into love.

“I can’t wait to meet my niece,” he said roughly.

iAm’s smile was short and hidden, as was his way. He had always been the quiet one, the self-effacing, take-a-back-seat one. But like he’d had a choice? Trez had always been the marching band headed for a cliff.

Too much noise for anyone else to take up space.

“And she’s going to love her uncle,” iAm said in a hoarse voice.

“I’m going to make sure of it.”

“You won’t have to work too hard at that.”

Trez peeked under the handkerchief. “Just a little longer, so it can take some wear and tear on the healed part.”

“I didn’t even know I’d broken the pencil.” Then, as if iAm wanted to avoid any more emotional anything, he asked, “So… what brought you this way? Just a chat?”

“Well, that and I need some food. For, ah, Therese. And her father and brother. Her mahmen’s at Havers’s in the ICU. They need sustenance.”

As iAm looked up sharply, Trez shook his head and peeked under the handkerchief. “And before you ask,” he said, “yes, I am going to talk to her. I’m going to explain… everything.”

“You could fall in love again, you know.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to be with her.”

iAm put up his forefinger. “I don’t want you to be with her if you think she’s someone else.”

“She is, though. Someone else, that is.”

“Well, when you’re ready, if you ever are, maybe you can give it a shot. If not with her, then with someone else.”

“I can’t think like that right now.”

“I know and I don’t blame you.” iAm got to his feet and flexed his hand. “In the meantime, I will cook for her and her family. And I will make her the very best meal she has ever had.”

Less than ten minutes later, iAm was at the stove, his injured hand gloved up, the spices flowing, the sauces simmering. He was cooking like the expert he was, nothing sloppy or distracted now, and the smells were heaven. What was even better? As Trez sat on a stool and watched, some of the tension left him.

Although he knew it would return as soon as it was time to go back to the hospital and see Therese again—

Hey, check it. He could think her name without hesitating now.

Great. Good job, sport.

Shit, he really needed to talk to her. But like it was appropriate with her mahmen’s condition?

“Oh, listen,” he said, “Therese’s going to stay with her mahmen. At Havers’s, that is. Until the situation… resolves.”

iAm started chopping a bundle of fresh basil leaves. “Tell her to take as long as she needs for that sad business.”

“I will. Just keep the position open for her if you can. She needs this job.”

“She has it. For as long as she wants it.”

Trez thought of all the things he would change if he could. There were so many… but none of them involved that female morphing into his Selena. He’d lived that fantasy for ten minutes, and all he’d done was prove his brother’s predication true.

Someone who deserved better was going to get hurt. And it was all Trez’s fault.

“She’s saving up to move out of the rooming house she’s staying in,” he heard himself say. “She wants to do things on her own.”

Maybe that would be different now, though. With her reconciling with her family, maybe she would go back to Michigan with them. Surely they would return to her hometown there—no, wait. She’d said her parents were moving for her mahmen’s health. Down south somewhere? North Carolina? South Carolina?

As he pictured her leaving Caldwell, and him never seeing her again, his heart ached, but he didn’t trust the emotion.

He didn’t trust his read on anything anymore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Mahmen,” Therese said. “We’re right here. We’re all right here.”

There were now three chairs around the bedside. The staff had been so kind, so easy to deal with, so accommodating where and when they could be given the dire nature of that which they were treating. Then again, they didn’t go into this particular division of medicine unless they were a special breed. Here, in the ICU, there was more death than life, the battle against the Grim Reaper lost more times than won.

So you had to be tough without losing your compassion.

Therese gently stroked her mahmen’s cool, dry hand and tried not to choke up. “I am so sorry I left like that.” She glanced across at her father. Looked to the right at her brother. “I’m so sorry, but I’m here with you now, and Gareth and I have made up, and Dad is here… our family is back together, Mahmen.”

“That’s right, nalla,” her father said.

“I want to understand, Mahmen,” she continued. “You have a story to tell, I know this. And I want to know what it is, from you, and I want you to know that whatever it is, I accept it. You had your reasons for doing what you did, but you have to come back to us so I can know them from you. You have to… come back to us so you and I can be as we were.”

Focusing on the closed eyes, she had no idea what to expect as she fell silent.

No, that was not exactly true. She knew what she wanted. She wanted the female to wake up, start breathing on her own, and resume life. Resume all their lives. Continue into the future that Therese had once taken for granted, but would no longer.

When nothing happened, when there was no response at all nor any recognition, Therese took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Mahmen.”

And… that was how it went. They sat like that, on their vigil, with the machines beeping and staff coming and going silently, for God only knew how long. Every once in a while, Therese would repeat what she’d said in some form or another, or her father would tell an anecdote—like about the time Gareth had tried to paint the outside of the house as a Mother’s Day present—or Gareth would stand up and pace in front of the glass wall that faced the rest of the ICU.