In Which Celina Ponders a Logical World

August 18, 1181

"Taking care of Rona for me, are you?" Celina's fingers dove into the dog's soft fur and set to work on what she hoped was a desired scratch. Lemons responded with a happy wag of her tail. "That's a good girl."

Behind her, the bedsheets rustled. Rona must have shifted. "She's always been good. Darry's giving me more trouble. He never seems to want a nap any more."

"And Yvanette's still perched by the door, I noticed." Ever since her father left, the little girl had kept a constant vigil in the front room. So far as Celina knew, Rona could only manage to drag her away for sleep, meals, and hygiene. The most she could do was bring her toys. "She pretended to be happy to see me, sweet little thing she is, but I know disappointment when I see it. She wasn't there waiting for me."

"No, she wasn't." Rona wouldn't say any more, not even to muse how many more days would pass before Yvanette gave up waiting. She might not have even been thinking it. She had enough on her mind as it was. Some said that a mother's sole duty was to her children, but Celina had never agreed; how could one hope to be a halfway decent mother if she never took the time to sort out her own troubles?

Rona had a lot of troubles. Celina's first glimpse of Yvanette upon arriving had reminded her of nothing more than a young Rona, always with the brave smile, never truly at ease. Years later, those smiles had grown too much for her, so she'd dropped them, and it had only been recently that she'd found them again--for real this time, or so Celina had dared hope.

That hope had been premature.

"Mind if I join you?" No answer. As Rona's mother, Celina took that as permission to settle herself on the empty side of the bed.

She got herself as comfortable as the air would allow and turned to study Rona's face. She would never say it aloud, and of course all of her girls were beautiful, but if some villainous cur had a sword to her throat and demanded she tell him which of her daughters was the most so... it had to be Rona, the only one with Dalston's heart-shaped jaw and his petite nose and Celina's mother's golden curls. And yet, Rona had never once been satisfied with her looks, and it seemed now to Celina that her physical insecurity had only been a symptom of some deeper esteem issue. Wherever that had come from, Celina couldn't pinpoint, nor could she help but feel rather guilty. Between her father's early death and Celina's remarriage and so many siblings vying for her and Ovrean's attention, Rona's crippling self-hatred could have stemmed from any number of things. If only someone could have caught it sooner.

Today, as it had the day before, her pretty face bore the marks of fatigue, the bags under her eyes and the redness they brought along. The recent and current stresses were all factors, but Celina also doubted that Rona had slept much since Ashe had left. Of her other nine children, not one had crawled into Celina's bed half as often as Rona had, even in their youngest years--and once Rona had grown older, more often than not Celina would find Aspen sleeping beside her during her routine checks, probably not by her own suggestion. Rona hated sleeping alone.

"I think you miss him too."

Rona clenched her jaw and fidgeted with her wedding ring. She hadn't worn it the day before; its mere presence was an admission of sorts. "It's complicated."

"Of course it is. You wouldn't miss him if it wasn't." Celina's frown lined as her daughter said nothing. For the past few days she'd tried to explain Rona's distance with her as a result of her having known who Ashe really was and not telling her, but she'd come to dismiss that theory; Rona would not have stood to hear it from her, if she'd even believed her. And with the exceptions of her children, she'd been just as distant with everyone else, if not moreso.

"He should have told you sooner. We both know that, and he knows it too. And while it is a difficult story to believe, it's not any less plausible than what you ended up telling yourself. Certainly not as problematic."

"I'm not sure I really believe what I thought any more." But she looped her finger through her laces and tugged, to the point where Celina was sure one would snap. "But I don't know if I believe him either. Even if I do, that's still a lot to accept."

"He's still the same person deep down, Rona."

"Then why has he spent all this time trying to convince me otherwise?"

Celina sighed. If the world ran purely on logic, Rona would have known that better than anyone. "The same reason we all do many things, dear. He was scared and confused."

"And now we're both scared and confused. Lot of help that did." What help did inaction ever do? But not everyone readied for action so quickly, nor was it wise to act before they did. If only timing could have respected that. "What should I do when he comes home?"

"That's up to you. If you can't get past this, then it's not fair to either of you or to your children to live a lie." Celina reached across the bed and took her daughter by the hand, as she had many times when Rona had been a little girl, if not quite enough. "Though if you don't mind my saying so--if some part of you didn't want him back, you wouldn't have called your castle his home."

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