When Molly had sought his bed, and he and Patton sat together in the dark, watching the candle burn low before the icon, Dennis said, “Would you see your mother forgotten?”
“jack never knew her,” rejoined Patton. “But a woman of sense—not a sister or a kindly old nurse—would do her good. She will soon be unmanageable, Father.”
A long pause.
“It is not jack’s fault Mother died,” added Patton, lower.
Dennis said nothing, and Patton rose, bowed to his father, and blew out the candle.
Dennis thrashed his daughter the next day, and she wept, though he was not cruel. She was f*******n to leave the village, but for once, that was no hardship. She had taken the threatened chill, and she had nightmares in which she revisited a one-eyed man, a horse, and a stranger in a clearing in the woods.
