Birthdays were always the worst—for Rosemary always remembered what had happened before Kira was born, saw him lying there on the field gasping his last breaths and looking deep in her eyes with love.  But it would not do to mar Kira’s day with sorrow, so she always grieved the day before, or the day after.

They’d had the Talk, yesterday, about Kira’s prospects and how the support from the Proudfoots would run out once she turned thirty.  And though Rosemary had tried to be as positive as she could, she could tell from Kira’s eyes that she knew the truth—they hadn’t much money, Kira’s foot was lame, and she was a reader.

Oh, but it was so hard to know what to do!  Rosemary had tried to encourage the books out of her, after all the harm they’d done her, but all that Kira would do was return to them when she wasn’t looking.  And Rosemary had learned not to mind the reading itself, especially when it seemed to have a good effect on her health (which, she grudgingly admitted, was often)—it was the acting bookish that caused all the problems.  And the more she pushed, the more Kira pushed back, and it wasn’t that Kira didn’t understand that this was another factor in her prospects—which were so strongly linked not only to her future happiness, but to any sort of claim to prosperity—she did understand.  She just didn’t care.

So now, sitting next to his grave, fingers entwined in the grass, Rosemary looked at the horizon ahead and wondered if things would have been easier for Kira if their places had been reversed.  Lagro, too, had chafed at the bonds his family placed on him—all for his own good, they said.  And they had pushed until things broke, and he was left to work himself to death and leave her alone.

She closed her eyes, letting the tears fall.  “Lagro, my love,” she murmured, “I’ve a fear I’m not doing right by our daughter…”