“I’m fine,” Lucius said, his hand resting on his son’s arm and feeling the sinewy muscles that had begun to grow stronger in his young limbs. “I’m just thinking. I have business to take care of when we go to town tomorrow and I want to make sure I have everything.”
“Oh,” Phoebus said absently, looking at the large round clay dish on the table top. “Can I touch the sand?” He pointed to the dish in which Lucius had kept sand from Numidia and often ran his hands and fingers through the cool flour-like consistency.
Lucius leaned forward and pulled the dish closer to them. He took off the lid and laid it aside. Together they put their hands into the sand and raised a small handful each, watching it run between their fingers back into the dish.
Phoebus smiled. “I don’t remember the desert at
