She sank down beside him and took up an abandoned figure. “I will. But first… I wish to ask you a question.”
He frowned, sat up taller. “What question?”
“It’s about Atlas.”
Alfie’s frown deepened, and he sank low behind the books, the figures he held in each hand toppling to the ground.
Oh no.
“Alfie—”
“He doesn’t like me anymore.”
Well. That answered the question. “He does, love,” she reassured him.
“No. I know the window’s not nailed shut. He just doesn’t want me up there with him. And he stopped making me toys.”
“He has other things to do.”
“He’s stopped giving me words to rhyme.” That said as if it settled the matter. No more rhymes meant no more affection.
She wrapped her arms tightly around her son. Too big to pull into her lap, but not too big for a hug. Loving him was the easiest part of being a mother. Everything else about motherhood—bloody difficult.
“Would you like to go mistletoe hunting with Atlas, then? He’d like you to.”
Alfie sat up so quickly, his head rammed into her chin. She rubbed it, her son’s shining eyes a healing balm. “Sorry, Mama. But is it true?”
“If you wish it, then we will do it.” Keeping them apart had not saved her son from pain, only passed it on to everyone else. “Alfie, I’ve one more question.”
He picked up his toys and marched them across the book fort once more.
She stroked her hand down the back of his head. “If Atlas were to leave one day, go on a… holiday to the Continent, what would you?—”
“Are we going with him?” Alfie jumped to his feet, eyes rare gems once more.
“Likely not.”
“Oh.” He deflated, frowned. “Well, he’d better bring me something back, then.”
“You would not be… sad?”
He shrugged. “He’ll come back. And maybe he’ll take us next time.”
“You were very sad when your papa passed away.”
“But going to the Continent isn’t dying. Atlas will be back.” He blinked up at her. “Is he truly going somewhere?”
She hugged Alfie to her side. “Not yet. Do not worry about it.”
And he wouldn’t. Clearly. She’d botched everything, hadn’t she? High on her own happiness, she’d worried she’d paid too little attention to her son’s well-being. She’d paid even less attention to her husband’s.
No more. Surely she could find the way to protect them both.
When she’d woken him this morning, he seemed to have come to lovely life beneath her touch. From stone to smiling blood and bone as soon as he saw her face. No time to dissemble. Only truth in that groggy, early morning moment. She held the power to soothe him, to take away his pain. As long as he remained at Briarcliff, she’d do just that.
Fifteen
December 23, 1822
