Where the Lost Wander

by Amy Harmon

“It is. It is the suffering of love. Every parent feels it. It is the suffering of being unable to shield or save. It is not love if it doesn’t hurt.”

“But anger is useless,” she insists. “Useless and futile.” “I don’t know about that.” It isn’t useless if it keeps the fear away.

I cared for Lucy, cared for Abigail, but grief is draining. I am hoarding my strength and my stamina for life, and I will not spend it on death.

Webb is always underfoot, Will too, though I don’t mind much. They’re good boys, all the Mays. It’s like my father said. It’s all in the mother; the jack doesn’t make much difference. Winifred May is a damn good woman, and William knows it, which is to his credit. The best thing about him is her.

She doesn’t come find me when I am on watch—she hasn’t since I told her I wasn’t going to kiss her again—and I’m too proud to seek her out. So I’m miserable. And if her downcast eyes and stiff shoulders are any indication, she’s miserable too. Damn, if the days aren’t long. It is not easy, once you’ve been bathed in light and warmth, to be shut out in the cold.

“The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t,” Winifred muses. “If nothing matters, then there’s no point. If everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.”

“That’s what marriage is. It’s shelter. It’s sustenance. It’s warmth. It’s finding rest in each other. It’s telling someone, You matter most. That’s what Naomi wants from you. And that’s what she wants to give you.”

Why would I want to stare at my own reflection in my children if I could look at John instead?

Winifred hands her son to Hanabi, her eyes gleaming in the tepid light, and Hanabi, without any self-consciousness, opens her robe and moves the child to her breast, guiding her nipple into his mouth. He latches on without difficulty, becoming almost limp in her arms, his cheeks working, his body still. Winifred weeps openly, one hand pressed to her mouth and one to her heart, and Naomi cries with her, holding Hanabi’s daughter, her eyes on the little boy, who suckles like he’s starving, first one breast and then the other, until he falls into a milk-induced slumber, releasing the nipple in his mouth. Hanabi closes her robe and sets the babe against her shoulder, rubbing Wolfe’s small back. He burps with a satisfied rumble, and Winifred smiles through her tears as Hanabi lays him back in her arms.