“Margot, sometimes there’s simply nothing we can do. You want to think you could have helped, that a few minutes or hours would have made a difference. That she could be here still.” He spread his hands. “But what if it wouldn’t have? What if, no matter what you did that day, she would have died? Do you think it would be easier now if you’d seen it happen? If she’d been in your arms?” Now his face contorted. “It wouldn’t be. Trust me. I was with my mother in the boat when it overturned. I tried to get her to shore, I tried to save her. I was barely more than a lad, but I thought it was my fault that I couldn’t. I watched her face mottle and her soul fly away. You never forget that. Never. You ought to be thanking the Lord for sparing you such a memory.”

She shook her head. “Better bad memories for me than her dying alone.”

“Really? You think she’d have wished that on you? What if her last prayer was for you, that the Lord spare you that?”

She jolted and pressed that last inch into the window, away from him as much as she could manage.

Because she could imagine it. Maman, feeling the pain, knowing her last minutes were upon her, and thinking not of herself or how to get help, but of her children. Praying that God spare them whatever pain He could.

But He shouldn’t have listened. He should have told her anyway.

Drake swayed a bit on his feet, but he didn’t move off, didn’t reach for any support. “I know nothing makes it easier. I do, I’ve been there. Logic can’t make it feel less.”

Her chin edged up. “I am no slave to my feelings.” She wouldn’t be. Couldn’t be.

His smile looked sad. And understanding. “Then cling to the logic. If you trust the Lord enough to listen when He asks you to pray for a stranger, you must trust Him in this too—that He knows better than we do when it is time for us to die.”

How many times had she said she trusted the Lord because He was the only being in the universe she could be sure was smarter than she? She hadn’t questioned Him when He took Papa home. But somehow this was different. “I cannot accept it. Not this time.” Her words emerged bare and skeletal, clattering against each other like dry bones.

He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, Lukas appeared, frowning and fierce. “Margot, what is the matter?” He shot an arrow of a look at Drake.

Margot touched her brother’s arm to still him. “We were talking of Maman. That’s all.”