He stared at me with a bleak, arrested look that reminded me of the way I’d felt when, the day before, I’d called out to ask her if she had any twine and she hadn’t answered.

I set the tea to steeping, and put out the good cups and saucers. By the time I brought everything to the table he had his face under control again. He would have been within his rights to remind me that he hadn’t wanted anything, thank you, but he didn’t do that. I poured, and he lifted his cup and drank as if his mind wasn’t on it. I sipped at mine and kept my mouth shut. I’d just played what I considered an ace, and it was up to him to respond.

Finally he set the cup down with a little click. “I am sorry if it gives you pain,” he said, in his measured, rather formal way, “but I must carry her body back. That is all.”

Not an ace, after all. But he’d sure looked as if it was. “Why?”

“It is the duty I owe to the memory of… of the ones who have gone before us. To our family.”

I had less sympathy with that argument than some people would, but it seemed to weigh a lot with him. “You have a duty to her, too, don’t you? To her memory. Because if you came here at all, you must not have disowned her.”

China rang softly as his hand bumped the saucer. He jumped a little and put both hands in his lap. “It cannot be discussed. Please, please, do not press me, but be assured that it is of the greatest importance to me.”

It was unsatisfying; it was unsatisfactory; it did, in fact, give me pain; but I didn’t know what else to say. Tick-Tick’s last four years meant more to me than anything that could happen to what was left of her now. Vissa hadn’t had those four years. Maybe he needed her funeral more than I did. I didn’t look forward to explaining to anyone who showed up for it tomorrow why there wasn’t going to be a ceremony after all, but I could do it.

And what if he was right? She had been my best friend, but there had been things we didn’t talk about, boundaries we didn’t cross, questions we didn’t ask. If I knew more about her than I had actually been told by her, I didn’t mention it, and she did the same. It had something to do with pride, with recognizing its requirements in each other and respecting them. I’d shared the last four years of her life, but he’d shared the ones before that. He might know things I had been too respectful to ask.