I thought I would die at once, from the pain. It swelled from my heart into my throat, and squeezed my head. I did not feel weak or faint; my heart beats were as slow and steady as the beat of a funeral drum, and with each thud my entire body throbbed. I looked around the room. The light was unusually clear; the colors and textures of the objects in the room were painfully sharp to my eyes. I could hear the crackle of the fire, the sound of my breathing, and Robbie's. A redbird cried from a naked branch of the maple tree outside the window.
I remembered then the promise I had made to God, that if Robbie would be spared, I would ask for nothing else. I swallowed, and my eyes remained dry. I drew upon the strength that had carried me from Gillean to Brianag and from Brianag to Barraigh, and back again; I raised myself to my feet, and raising his hand to my lips, and holding back the shriek of grief and rage that struggled to escape my throat, I kissed it. Then I turned and left the room.
I had thought that I had known grief so terrible that there could be none worse. I now knew it was not so. The pain that wracked me now was like none I had never experienced, not even when my mother killed herself, not even when my bairn was lost.
Robbie had rejected me. The mainstay of my existence was withdrawn. I did not know how I would bear this final loss.