Ben knew how to have this conversation, this repetitive reassurance that grief can take its own time and shape. But that had been grief for parents, children, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives. Neat categories of valid relationships that everyone understood, phrases of belonging that could be etched concisely onto tombstones: beloved son, devoted wife. There were even rules for how to grieve people in each category, how many months to wear a black armband and whether one could dance. Captain Dacre didn’t have any of that, and Ben felt his heart twist in his chest at what that must cost him.
