The weeks of summer slipped by while Henry often felt as if he were an observer of his own life, looking at it somehow from the outside in. Everyone in the household was pleased—although no one more than himself—when Kat’s pain seemed to have reached a plateau. She was troubled by it more some days than others, but it wasn’t worsening, and she was actually getting around quite well and living a fairly normal life. Seeing Kat like this made it easier for everyone else in the family to follow her example of pretending that nothing was wrong, even though Henry couldn’t forget for more than a few minutes that all of this was temporary, and he knew the other members of the family felt the same. They talked about it amongst themselves here and there when Kat wasn’t present. Being united in their love and support of Kat, they had all agreed that they should express their feelings and concerns to each other when they felt the need, rather than holding them inside. And so the days became a balancing act between living life in the present—with Kat at the center—and making the most of it, pretending it could go on this way forever, while at the same time contending with feelings too frightening and horrible to comprehend. Having others who shared those feelings proved more invaluable every day, but it sometimes felt like a game of cat and mouse to make certain Kat never caught any of them expressing their grief or talking about her illness and their feelings about it.

Henry made a point of spending time alone with Kat every day. They would lounge in the library or sometimes just in their rooms, and occasionally they would walk in the gardens or even go on a picnic when the weather was fair. He knew it was important for himself—and for her—that they spend this time together. He didn’t want to have any regrets in regard to his marriage in spite of—or perhaps especially because of—its brevity. And he could easily see that Kat was happier and more at ease when she was given regular doses of evidence of his love for her. The theory certainly went both ways; he felt as if he were starving for every morsel of her love and her life, and he could feel the sand running through the hourglass of her time in this world. He wanted to hold that sand securely in his hands and not let it fall, but every day he felt it slipping between his fingers while he could do nothing to stop it.