“I don’t say so. I say stay here, Sarina. Didn’t your wise grandmother tell you that in times of stress and loss one should never make a major change? You need time to think about all of this.” Hannah slipped her palm under Sarina’s chin and lifted the young woman’s face to hers. “You’ll stay right here with us. I love you. Max loves you. You’ve made a place in our hearts, and we would mourn your going.”

Sarina’s large, dark eyes looked into Hannah’s and behind the tears, Hannah saw both moments of fear and of gratitude. “But…”

“Hush, now.” Hannah held and rocked her. “We love you. Don’t think! Don’t do anything but just be here.”

Sarina snuggled like a babe against Hannah. In these few minutes, a measure of peace had been restored to her, and she sent a quick prayer of thanks to Krishna. “You have been, you are, a mother to me,” she said.

Max awakened with a heavy heart. He lay there and relived the scene at the barn, then shuddered, remembering every word of the angry exchange between Zachary and himself. When were things ever settled in rage? Could he relive that scene, he would remain calm. He would allow Zachary his anger, and then he would take him aside and talk to him. He would listen to what his son had to say. They would, in time, reach an accommodation.

He remembered something that Zachary had said. Max could determine the size, shape, and color of the few houses his son wanted to build. Max had chosen to ignore those words, which had suggested compromise, and he had reacted in old ways, treating Zachary not as the man he was, but as a strange, unknown quantity of a boy whom Max could never fathom. Did that make Zachary wrong, just because he, George Maxwell, had fathered a son with whom he had not an iota in common? No. It did not.

Max himself had been not at all like his own father, and how disappointed his father had been at his choice of career, agriculture rather than law, and a lifestyle so different from his parents. People were, after all, who they were. He had been hasty and unreasonable with his son, and Max was deeply sorry. Well, today he would sit down with Zachary and they would come to a better conclusion.