So prove it. There’s nothing real about Wilfred’s death, is there? If Wilfred were really dead, Elfriede—his lover, his wife, his blood companion, the mother of his children, she who harbors Wilfred’s heart inside her own chest, his soul inside her own skin—if he were dead, she’d feel his death in her bones, in the corridors of her body, and she feels nothing at all except the kick of Wilfred’s baby in her womb, and the wetness of Margaret’s tears on her chest, her arm, her lap. (What there remains of her lap, anyway.) Well, really. How can those blue eyes be closed? How can those limbs, which were made to tangle around hers, made for this single purpose and none other, to hold and soothe and make love to Elfriede—how can those limbs have gone still? How can that mind, which was made to give laughter and life to others, be lifeless? It’s impossible, obviously. No physical evidence whatsoever exists to prove that Wilfred Thorpe is dead.

Except, perhaps, this lump of canvas, on which their daughter weeps.

Elfriede staggers carefully to her knees and pulls Margaret into her arms. She sits on the floor with Wilfred’s children, born and unborn, and holds them close. Margaret’s sobs take the form of words—I can’t, I can’t live without him, he can’t be dead—and Elfriede answers her in kind. He’s not, darling, he’ll always be with us, Daddy would never leave us. The baby, who knows nothing of the outside world, just throws out an elbow or a foot or something. Elfriede thinks of that last night of Wilfred’s leave, and the way the baby shifted and turned between them, making his father laugh for possibly the first time in the entire five days he’d been home. He’s a busy chap, right enough, Wilfred said, and Elfriede, lying on her side, facing her husband, drinking the gentle sound of his laughter, put her hand on his cheek and said, Like his father. More laughter, and Are you quite certain of that, my love? A chap at the front has to take his wife’s word on these matters, so naturally she pondered for a minute and replied, Well, it’s either you or Jock Cholmondeley, every other man’s gone off to France, and Wilfred smacked his forehead and said, Cholmondeley, that rascal! I always knew he was in love with you, and pretty soon they were giggling like old times, like before the war, like Florida, and one thing led to another until Wilfred and Elfriede, baby or no baby, were once more exchanging proofs of their enthusiastic devotion to each other, like before the war, like Florida. How could you be more alive than that?