“Oh, it’s not a matter of should or should not. I just don’t know why you’d bother.”

My mother looked confused again. “He has always been a clean-shaven man,” she said. “In the beginning, when we didn’t shave him, he began to look too—”

“Dirty?” Cate said.

“Wild,” my mother said.

Cate shrugged. “Nothing wrong with wild.”

It was odd to be in the room with so many people, all of us clustered around the bed looking at my father, as if he were a bug in a jar.

Esther put the big book on the bed. “What do you want to try first?”

But Cate shook her head. “Nothing written down.”

She turned to Larkin. “Thank you for taking such good care of me for so long.”

And there, in those twelve words, I heard the beginning of some kind of goodbye.

Larkin must have heard the same thing. “I didn’t take care of you,” he said, his voice trembling. “You took care of me.”

She nodded. “Then we’re even.” Her lips twisted. “But now I wonder if you would go home and look after your mother for a while. I have some things to do here, and they are things best done alone.”

Larkin looked stricken. “Without me?”

“I think so.” And the tears she’d been holding spilled down her cheeks all at once.

“But I can help.”

“Not this time. But, oh, my sweet boy, don’t you ever forget how much you’ve already done. And so much more to come.” She held her little doll out toward him.

He took the doll. Thrust it into his pocket and left his hand there with it.

The others must have heard the goodbye now, too, since they all, even Samuel, looked much as Larkin did, though we were not all kin. Though we were.

Then Cate said her old blessing. And again. And a third time, her tears like rain.

Which was when Larkin began to cry, too, bending to hold her in his arms.

“What’s that she said?” Samuel whispered.

“That was Gaelic,” I said, my throat tight. “It means ‘Good health to you and every blessing.’”

“Come along now,” my mother said, herding everyone toward the door. “Let’s let her work.”

When I turned to follow, Cate said, “Not you,” and we all turned back.

She beckoned to me. “Not you,” she said. “You stay.”

Chapter Sixty-Four

When everyone else had left, Cate and I looked at each other for a long time without saying a word.

From beyond the bedroom door, I could hear Samuel yammering away, my mother answering him softly.

Then, from the near distance, came a long, lingering howl.

It was as mournful and wild as any coyote I’d ever heard, but I recognized the voice. And I imagined little Quiet nearby in the woodshed, hearing his father for the first time.

“Oh Captan, my Captan,” Cate whispered.