“What if he needs me?”I said, trying to wrench my arm out of Dania’s grasp without jerking her at all, which, of course, was impossible.
“Then Fell will bring him to us.He knows where we are going,” Dania’s hair seemed to have grown triple the length since she’d becomevaneurigk.It swished as she tugged me.
“You will?”I turned to Fell.
“I choke on it,” he said, his eyes clear with promise.He was truly promising now, comforting me, building a wall around me with his expression alone.
I left, and I was on the verge of tears the whole time I was gone.Dania washed my hair and made me wait for her to wash hers before she sighed, “Fine.You can go.”
I dressed as quickly as I could and raced back to our room to hear Fell from just outside the door, humming to Halvar.The knots of who I was, the inner wounds that life had given me, the roughness of the world—everything faded and healed for one wondrous moment.Fell’s voice softened for our child.I listened for a moment more outside before entering quietly, my heart fluttering as I saw Halvar’s sleepy wellness.Had I believed he wouldn’t be well without me?I had.I don’t know why.
“What happened while I was gone?”I said, coming close, letting my wet hair drip on the bed.One of my fingers brushed against Halvar’s teeny elbow.
Fell shook his head.“Nothing.You left.I leaned back like this.You returned.Truly nothing.”
“Surely not.I was gone so long.”
That wretched, perfect smile.“No.You were a quarter of an hour, maybe.Probably less.”
I shook my head.“That is impossible.”
“I swear it is the truth.”He set Halvar on the bed between us before taking my face in his hands.“It is time to come out of the cloud,” he said.“At least a little.I miss you.”
“I do not know what you mean.”
His brows furrowed slightly.His voice quieted.“You have been gone from your own body.You have been only Halvar, Halvar’s doorway, Halvar’s mother—for three moons.”
“I have only been?—”
Fell raised his brows.“When was the last time our lips touched?”
“I—”
“Do you think it was before Halvar came or after?I know the answer.”
I couldn’t remember.
“It was before he came.”
I was tired—so tired my eyes itched and burned—so I cried.“I will never be able to do anything else but think of him.”I believed this with my whole heart.I will never do anything again but wish over him and hope over him and fret over him.
I was wrong, of course.But it felt true at the time.It seemed impossible to me that I would ever be able to look away from him long enough to have a conversation, to have sex again, to think or read or play music.
“I miss you,” Fell said again, even quieter.
And I saw what he was saying in his face, how lonely he’d been.How I’d almost forgotten he existed while I fawned and stressed over the little limbs that stretched and the little voice that squawked.“I am sorry,” I whispered.“It is very overwhelming.I love him so much.”
“I know,” Fell said, stroking my cheeks.
I closed my eyes, trying to let the feel of his hands take over my whole mind.The places his palms were rough, the places they were soft.Feeling his strength.The hundred promises he’d made me with his eyes and hands and presence.When I opened my eyes, we kissed, and then a war erupted within me.The parts of my body that were still mine and the parts that were Halvar’s collided.I relished Fell’s hold, his chest, the flatness of his stomach, but my breasts felt wrong between us—swollen and so full they itched—water quickened between my legs, but so did pain.I wanted Fell entirely, desperately, tragically, but my flesh wasn’t ready for him, and I had to stop us.He understood, but I felt our night ruined and spent some time weeping over how lost I felt in my body, in my own mind.
I took better care of myself.I heeded Ivar’s advice.Dania’s and Arik’s, too.I understood there was a rhythm in people’s offerings: someone would offer to hold Halvar so I could learn to eat on my own again—because I had forgotten, you see?One hand on my bowl and the other on my spoon.Someone would offer to rock him, so I might play a tune on the lyre and feel the flow of music in my own hands separate from Halvar.
And then there came the day that all of us were in the hall together and Arik asked Fell if there was anything he needed now that Halvar’s neck had grown so strong he could look any which way he wanted and not a moment could pass without someone exclaiming, “Look how strong he is!”
Fell said, “Well… there is one thing, but it is not the thing you are thinking.”
“I am thinking money,” Arik said, earning many laughs.
