“I keep thinking I’m over it,” she managed. “Then it sneaks up and squeezes my heart.”

“You haven’t let yourself cry it through. Go ahead, darling. You’ll feel better for it.”

It ripped at him, each shuddering sob, and knowing he could do no more than be there.

“I want them back.”

“I know, darling. I know you do.”

“Why do people have to leave, Murphy? Why do the people who we love and need so much have to leave?”

“They don’t, not all the way. You still have them inside, and you can’t lose them from there. Don’t you hear your mother talking to you sometimes, or your father reminding you of something you did together?”

Tired and achy from crying, she turned her damp cheek so it could rest against his chest. Foolish, she realized. How foolish it had been to think it was stronger to hold in the tears than to let them go.

“Yes.” Her lips curved in a watery smile. “I get pictures sometimes, of things we did together. Even the most ordinary things, like eating breakfast.”

“So they haven’t left all the way, have they?”

She closed her eyes, comforted by the steady beat of Murphy’s heart under her ear. “Just before the Mass, my mother’s funeral Mass, the priest sat down with me. He was very kind, compassionate, as he was only months before when we buried my father. Still, it was the standard line—everlasting life, mercy, and the eternal rewards both my parents would reap having been devout Catholics and good, caring people.”

She pressed against him one last time, for herself, then drew back. “It was meant to comfort me, and perhaps it did, a little. What you just said helps a lot more.”

“Faith’s a kind of remembering, Shannon. You need to prize your memories instead of being hurt by them.” He brushed a tear from her cheek with the side of his thumb. “Are you all right now? I’ll stay if you like, or get Brie for you.”

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.”

He tipped her chin up, kissed her forehead. “Then sit down, drink your tea. And don’t clutter your mind with New York till you’re ready.”

“That’s good advice.” When she sniffled, he took his bandanna out of his pocket.

“Blow your nose.”

She laughed a little and obeyed. “I’m glad you came by, Murphy. Don’t stay away again.”

“I’ll be around.” Because he knew she needed time to herself now, he turned to take his cap from the peg. “Will you come to the fields again soon? I like seeing you painting there in the sunlight.”

“Yes, I’ll come to the fields. Murphy . . .” She trailed off, not sure how to put the question, or why it seemed so important she ask. “Never mind.”

He paused at the doorway. “What? It’s always better to say what’s on your mind than to let it circle in there.”

Circling was exactly what it was doing. “I was wondering. If we’d been . . . friends when my mother was ill, and I’d had to go away to take care of her. To be with her. When she died, if I’d told you I could handle all of it, even preferred to handle all of it alone, would you have respected that? Stayed away?”