He nodded. “I’m sure it was. As a child, his words hurt, but as a man I can understand it more.”

“Understand him, despite all he did.”

He was quiet a long moment, and then he sighed, “You know, I have spent so long hating my brother. Loathing what he became and what he did with his power. What he forced me to undertake when he so selfishly died.” He leaned in and she watched as he reached for the bear, then pulled away like he feared touching it would conjure some demon. “But looking at this ugly, battered child’s toy, I remember a thousand laughs and smiles. A thousand happier memories that I forced myself to forget when we were separated.”

“The good ones,” she said.

He jerked out an unsteady nod. “Yes. I wish I had recalled them earlier. Before—”

He cut himself off and got to his feet. He walked away, pacing the small room absently. She watched him as she stood, not approaching even though she so wanted to do that. To comfort again.

But he didn’t want that. She could see it. He might need it, but in a different form.

“Before he died,” she offered, filling in the gap in the sentence that hung between them.

“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I hadn’t spoken to him in a year before. He hadn’t paid some men and that kept me from being able to arrange a financial situation for myself. I confronted Solomon and we fought over his lack of self-control. I meant to reconcile. I thought we would. And then he was…gone.”

“Oh, Jasper.” The words were barely spoken loud enough for him to hear them, but he still flinched at them.

“Now I’ll never see him again,” he continued. “And as much as I have hated him for all the ways he failed, that is nothing compared to how much I hate myself for failing him.”

She stared at him, pain raw on his face as he looked at her and let her see down to his very soul. She knew that was a gift, painful as it may be. After all, this man held himself so stiff and proper and unyielding so much of the time. He wouldn’t show his broken heart to just anyone.

He’d chosen her. Not at first, perhaps, but in the end. And she wouldn’t let him down.

She moved toward him, watching his every reaction, carefully as if she was approaching a wounded beast. When he didn’t turn away, she caught his hands and tried her best to allow any strength she had to flow through herself to him.

“Life is so complicated, Jasper,” she said softly, choosing each word with the greatest of care. “We all have pains and regrets. But I think you’ve carried this one long enough, my love. Set it down.”

He shook his head. “How can you say that?”

“Because if your brother ever had any love for you, if he contained a fraction of the goodness you now recall about him and grieve, he wouldn’t have wanted for you to torture yourself. He would want you to release these weights on your shoulders.”