Jude stayed patient.“Try.Don’t think about it, just speak.”
Doug’s brow knit.His voice cracked.“I miss you.I miss you every day.You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone, and I shouldn’t have had to keep going after.”
His throat tightened, but he kept going.“I talk to you in the kitchen every morning.I make your tea like you’re still here.Sometimes I set the mug on the table and stare at it for hours.”
Jude dipped the feather in the clay and drew a circle over Doug’s heart.
“For the part of you that still waits for her,” he murmured.“Say more.”
Doug was crying now, but the words kept coming.“I hated the doctors and the pain you went through.I hated God and every person who looked at me with pity.Damn it, I hated my kids for not calling enough.And I hated myself for not knowing how to make it stop.”
Jude took Doug’s hands and pressed them between his own.
“You’ve carried that hate like armor,” he said.“What would you rather carry?”
Doug let out a long, shaking breath.“My memories of her love.”
“Then say this with me.”Jude lifted his head, voice deepening just slightly.Not performative—just solid.“I carry your memory, Linda.”
Doug echoed it.“I carry your memory, Linda.”
Jude: “Not as a weight.”
Doug: “Not as a weight.”
Jude: “But as a light.”
Doug: “But as a light.”
Jude released his hands.“Now let her go where you can’t follow.For now.But keep the light.”
He handed Doug a bundle of rosemary and rose petals tied with a red thread.“Place this in the fire when you’re ready.Not as an ending.As a marker, and a promise to live with the memory of her love in your heart.”
Doug stood, legs shaky.
He stepped to the fire and dropped the bundle in.The herbs crackled, and the petals hissed.Smoke twisted upward into the trees, sweet and sharp.
And Doug…
Doug exhaled.
Long and deep.
Like his lungs had been full of ash, and now they were clear.
He wiped his face, sniffling.But there was a stunned softness in his expression.
Like he didn’t expect to feel anything.
And now he didn’t know what to do with the relief.
Someone in the circle clapped quietly.Then someone else.Not wild applause, just a kind of collective reverence.
Doug looked at Jude.“Thank you.I didn’t think… I thought nothing could help.”
Jude gave him the faintest smile.“Sometimes we don’t need help.We just need space to heal.”
The drumming resumed behind me, soft and slow, like a heartbeat.
