“It was a horror for me to watch his decline, his hopeless battle in the stockade. Because we are so much alike, and because I felt..... I often felt that he made my mistakes for me. That I learned, and survived, only because of him. Many is the time that my own temper was about to explode, to my injury, and possible undoing.... But it was always James who struck the guard first, or raised his voice in anger at the outrage we all felt, but lacked the courage to act upon.
“It is a terrible thing to think that he died for that courage, and that because of my cowardice I live. Seeing the black end to which we must all come, still I shunned the fight. After the first year..... I only turned the other cheek, again and again. I told myself that I had to survive, just keep trying and hoping. But survival becomes a poor excuse, when pride is lost.
“It will be many years,” he concluded, “before I can look myself in the face when I think of James Talbert.”
“Why?” she asked, in deepest earnest. “Because you desired life instead of death? Because you saw the futility of resistance, and chose not to follow him into the grave? For I tell you now, and from the bottom of my heart, that if you had not lived, and come back to me. . .my own sorry tale could not have gone much further.
“And what of your mother? Do you have any idea what her life has been like, without you? I will never understand. Why do men call it a virtue to die, to leave bereft the ones they love, and a weakness to return to them, and give meaning and substance to their lives?
“Perhaps that is unfair,” she continued. “I have seen in the years of your absence just how bitter, how unanswerable sorrow can be. And I know that nothing is ever that simple. I only want you to know that this pain, this scar, I understand as well as you. I have felt the same remorse, the same bludgeoning sense of guilt. Until tonight.
“Do you know what he said to me, as he lay dying in my arms? ‘You have given my death meaning.’ He performed that last act of heroism, Michael. He may have saved my life.” Her voice faltered. “And if what you say is true, then he also helped deliver my love from the depths of the darkness. And to me, his name shall always be thrice blessed.
“Hold me, Michael, please. Don’t ever let me go. Dear God!”
“My only love, I promise you that. With all my soul, I promise you that.”
They put aside all further talk until the morning, and made their bed together for the first time. Michael was too ill, and she herself too weary, to make love. And without any words this was understood between them. They found joy and solace instead in the slow, gentle caress many lovers never feel, because they do not first feel love. Their passion would come when the skies above them were less dark, and when the fruit was ripe on the tree. Not before.