Henry held his son and talked to him and played with him until Harry became cranky due to hunger and needing his morning nap. The nanny took him, and Henry knew that the baby would be kept in the nursery for the remainder of the day; unless Kat specifically asked to see him, Harry was mostly kept away since Kat had requested it when she’d felt her own symptoms worsening.

Henry sat in an increasingly familiar location on a chair he often moved close to Kat’s bedside so that he could just sit and hold her hand. Sometimes he kissed it or held it against his face; sometimes he talked quietly to her, not certain if his words would reach past her sleep and into her mind, but he felt certain it was therapeutic for him. He verbally shared memories of how they had first become friends and how their feelings had grown and changed into something that had taken him completely by surprise. He told her how her love had healed many wounds inside of himself and had helped him come to terms with things he’d not even shared with her.

A maid brought lunch to Kat’s room for him, and he thanked her before he sat at the little table by the window to eat. He’d been eating lunch in this room for weeks now, alone with Kat while she slept; and he tried not to think about how she had come to a point where her very minimal appetite had diminished down to eating nothing at all. He knew death couldn’t be far away due to the simple fact that a body needed nutrition to survive and she was getting none. She rarely even took a drink of water and insisted that the smallest amount of broth or diluted wine made her nauseated.

After Henry had finished his lunch, he sat again beside Kat, holding her hand but remaining silent now while his thoughts sifted through memories and fears. He wasn’t surprised when Amala came to the room, since she always did after lunch, which was her usual time with her sister. He generally left her alone, but he felt hesitant to leave—or perhaps simply incapable of finding the strength to stand up and walk out of the room.

“May I have just a few more minutes before I go?” he asked quietly.

“Of course,” Amala said. “Do you prefer to be alone or—”

“No,” he said. “Please stay. She’s hardly stirred all morning. I think it’s getting close.”

“I’ve had the same thought,” Amala said, sitting exactly opposite Henry on a chair that had been placed on the other side of the bed. She took Kat’s other hand. “I feel so many thoughts and emotions bubbling up inside of me, but there is nothing to say that we haven’t all said so many times before.”