Amanda Edgar

“I’m sorry,” he said, very softly. “It’s not—don’t worry, I’m … He’s only a cat,” I said, and a small fresh grief tightened like a band round my chest. “Aye, I know.” He moved beside me and put an arm round my shoulders, pulling my head to his chest, while he gently wiped my face. “But ye couldna weep for the bairns. Or the house. Or your wee garden. Or the poor dead lass and her bairn. But if ye weep for your cheetie, ye know ye can stop.” “How do you know that?” My voice was thick, but the band round my chest was not quite so tight. He made a small, rueful sound. “Because I canna weep for those things, either, Sassenach. And I havena got a cat.” I sniffled, wiped my face one last time, and blew my nose before giving him back the handkerchief, which he stuffed into his sporran without grimace or thought. Lord, he’d said. Let me be enough. That prayer had lodged in my heart like an arrow when I’d heard it and thought he asked for help in doing what had to be done. But that wasn’t what he’d meant at all—and the realization of what he had meant split my heart in two. I took his face between my hands, and wished so much that I had his own gift, the ability to say what lay in my heart, in such a way that he would know. But I hadn’t. “Jamie,” I said at last. “Oh, Jamie. You’re … everything. Always.”
― Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone