“Not exactly?”
His heart raced. He hadn’t meant to say that. “Well, for a while I kind of saw someone. It didn’t work out.”
“Already,” Eri sighed. “Oh, Kei. Another self-obsessed maniac?”
“No. But – he wasn’t good for me. He’s… he drinks too much, he’s moody, he’s never quite honest with me…”
“He’s you.”
Keifon looked away. “…I guess so.”
“At least you know that’s bad for you. That’s progress.”
“And I have friends who are better influences,” Keifon went on, wanting to escape as far as he could from the topic of Edann. “My partner from the Benevolent Union has been wonderful. She’s only in the country till New Year’s. But it’s been good for me to have her as a friend.”
“That’s sweet,” Eri offered. “Not a prospect?”
He felt himself blushing. “No – no. It’s not like that. She has other prospects. And – no, she’s from a good family, and she’s going home to Nessiny. And it’s just not like that.” The thought of Agna as a – prospect – made him feel as though he were standing at a cliff’s edge, queasy and exhilarated. It would never work. She didn’t seem interested in having children, she wanted to travel, and she meant too much to him to risk; it would never work. “Anyway, I’m happy to have her in my life, and that’s all.”
Eri made a soft sound in her throat, not a word, or more than a word. Her hand rested on his knee. He looked up; she had leaned forward to bridge the space between them. “I’m glad you have someone like that,” she said.
He freed a hand to cover hers, and she let him stay that way until he could speak. “Thank you.”
Eri sat back. Keifon cleared his throat. “If I find a job in Wildern, I’d be about a week away. Do you think I could...”
Eri took a deep breath and nodded. “Of course. Under our agreement. But yes, of course.”
“Thank you. I won’t break the agreement. Thank you. This... I would be so happy.” He was warmed and fed now, but exhausted, and perilously close to saying something he would regret – or crying in front of her, thinking about the possibility of visiting Nachi every year. Or even more than once a year, if he could carve out the time from his work. He would try.
“I really... appreciate that you’d do that for her,” Eri said, and Keifon focused. “You know I’ve never agreed with this leaving the country idea. But I appreciate what you’re planning. I know you’re trying to do right by her. Even with all that’s happened. ...I want you to know that I respect what you’re doing now.”
He bit his lip and pressed the corners of his eyes, but the tears slid free. It buried so many years that he’d spent miserably recounting the things she’d said about him. The bad times had happened. They would always be real. But if even Eri could come to forgive him, then –
“Thank you,” he whispered. He couldn’t come up with any other words.
Eri let him compose himself. She poked at the fire and took his empty plate to the kitchen. She poured him more tea and a cup for herself. They sipped together, not quite companionable, but at peace.
“So,” she said. “Tell me more about the Benevolent woman.”
“Um. She’s Nessinian. She’s a healer, like a Tufarian healer, except pantheist. Sort of. She...” He couldn’t speak of Agna to Eri, of all people in this complicated world. He couldn’t even name her out loud.
“She’s good to you?”
The lump gathered in his throat. “Yeah. We’re... we get along well. I love being with her. We talk a lot. And read.” It sounded pathetic out loud. He couldn’t tell Eri about the way Agna laughed, or how good it felt when she broke through her cautiousness for him, or how he felt like he had found a place that he belonged. “It’s been good to have someone I can talk to.”
She sipped her tea, cradling the cup in her hands. “Have you thought about marrying again, when you settle down?”
“Yeah. Of course. I mean… I don’t know what it’s like in Wildern. Kaverans mostly make love matches. But I think there are a few matchmakers, too.”
“Hm. I’ve been thinking about looking. Now that Nachi is in school.”
Keifon’s warm thoughts plunged into chill. Eri deserved whatever happiness she could find, of course, the same as anyone. But Nachi... Nachi would have a new father, if Eri remarried. A replacement. ...An improvement, Keifon thought miserably.
He licked his lips and put the words together, one by one. “I wish you luck. I know... I know you’ll pick better this time. And Nachi deserves – she deserves a father who can be there for her.”
“It wouldn’t replace you. Don’t be like that.”
He clenched and released his hands. “I’m sorry. It’s... hard to face.”
“I know it is. But do I have your support?”
“Of course!”
“All right, then.” She smiled at him, though her eyes were tired. “She won’t forget you. She loves you.” She said it without resentment, and Keifon thanked her for that. “And I wouldn’t let her forget. Even with... everything, I want her to know her Apa. As long as... well, you know.”
“Yes. I know.”
“She can have a father and a stepfather. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Thank you for that.” Keifon wiped his eyes one more time and yawned. “Sorry. Do you think you could show me to your cousin’s now? I need some sleep.”
“Sure.” Eri uncurled from the chair like a cat and collected their teacups.
She emerged from the kitchen with a handful of the money that he’d brought. She unlaced his money pouch and poured the coins in. Feeling her hands on his waist shot alarm and arousal through his nerves, and his fatigue flashed away. Wildly inappropriate, his brain argued, fighting against his body’s reflexes. He began to stammer out a protest.
“Ssh. For your house in – Wildern?”
“Nngh. All right... all right.”
For a moment, Eri’s smile carried a trace of the wickedness and wildness that had drawn him to her so long ago. She had been the girl who got what she wanted, no matter who stood in her way. He had wanted to be her quest. He had wanted her to obliterate him with her personality, her indelible sense of self. He turned away and buckled on his backpack and slung his nanbur over his shoulder. He wasn’t the boy she had loved. That boy had died over and over. And she had calmed, rooted, mellowed. The storm had become the rock.
She walked with him through the wet streets. “Tomorrow. Apa will pick up Nachi at school at three. If you want to come over after that, I’ll tell him not to kill you. I’ll be home at seven.”
“Yes. I’d love that. Thank you.”
Her cousin’s room for rent had a separate door for lodgers, and that was where she left him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Rest well.”
“You, too.”
He worried about sending her off alone, and watched until she turned the corner. In her cousin’s rented room he unpacked, needing this time to let everything that Eri had said unfold in his head. He came across the package that Baran had given him and untied the strings. The toymaker had given him a present for Nachi: a carved wooden puzzle with bright geometrical pieces. Keifon laughed to himself. In the morning he could write a note of thanks back to the caravan. It would reach Baran before he did. He would write to Agna, too.
He pulled out the vial that Nelle had given him and gave it another cautious sniff. Lavender, which was achingly familiar. Rosemary? There were other components that he couldn’t place. He hardly needed help to get to sleep, for once, but it couldn’t hurt. Keifon tipped a few drops onto a handkerchief and left it on the bedside table to scent the room.
Keifon crawled into the wide feather bed and slept until his body had recovered from all of its insults. He might have woken a few times out of nightmares, but in the end it wasn’t important.
***
He walked Ceien’s streets much of the day, after greeting Eri’s cousin and paying for the room for
two weeks. He remembered the rough layout of the streets, though several of the businesses had turned over in the intervening years. He tried not to notice the store where Eri worked – at least a bookkeeper would be in the back room, where she wouldn’t see her ex-husband haunting the street outside. He passed the school where she sent Nachi, where Eri’s mother taught.
Their lives were complete here. He had seen it during his previous visits, and had felt crushed. Their lives were complete, he’d thought, and they did not need him. He was superfluous. An interloper. But what Eri had said last night... maybe he could fit into their lives, somehow. She believed that he could, and would leave the door open for him. Keifon had to believe that she was right, that he deserved such an honor.
The thought straightened out his spine as he walked and retreaded last night’s conversation. Eri respected him, despite her not-unfounded reservations. Agna respected him. Their patients and the Army and the Benevolent Union approved of him as a medic. He could act as though they weren’t wrong, and over time he could come to believe them.
When the hour came and he knocked on the Sans’ door, he greeted Eri’s father with a respectful bow and a smile. The older man’s mouth relaxed just a little. He turned to speak over his shoulder, but Nachi was already mid-flight. Keifon had just enough time to hand off the package from Baran to Nachi’s grandfather before she struck.
“Apa-Kei, Apa-Kei, Apa-Kei!” She latched onto his stomach, and he stooped to hoist her up. She was too old for this. It didn’t matter. His heart hammered and his soul sang. Finally, finally. Where he wanted to be, finally. He couldn’t have failed her if she still greeted him like this. Nachi nearly strangled him with her hug.
Eventually he heaved a step over the threshold so that Eri’s father could close the door. Nachi leaped to the floor. Keifon reached out for the gift, and Eri’s father handed it back. “Thanks. – Hey, sweet girl. One of Apa’s friends in Kavera made this for you.”
She carted it to a table by the fireplace to open it. “Thank you!”
Keifon knelt beside her as she rearranged the pieces into birds and ships and trees. Eri’s father moved on after a while, heading for the kitchen.
“How’s school?”
“Good,” she shrugged. “We’re reading Toki and the Six Foxes right now. It’s pretty good.”
“Ah yes.”
“You read it?”
“Lots of times. I’ve read all sorts of things.”
“I know that,” she said, exasperated. Of course it was self-evident; he was a grownup.
They talked about school, and the games they played in breaks, and math, and history. Nachi carried the box of puzzle pieces up to her room and bounced back out to pester her grandfather about dinner. Eri’s mother came home to find them both helping out; Nachi stood on a stool to chop vegetables on the counter. Keifon looked up guiltily from the pan he was scrubbing, remembered his determination not to grovel, and gave Eri’s mother a soapy salute. Nachi informed her that Keifon had arrived.
“Is h– are you staying for dinner, Keifon?”
“Oh – hm – I wouldn’t want to impose.” He calculated the pitfalls: he couldn’t make them look like the villains in front of Nachi, but he couldn’t invite himself if it would further alienate them. “I’d like to ask Eri, when she gets home.”
“Fair enough,” Eri’s mother concluded. She passed by Keifon and Nachi to give her husband a kiss, then left them to their preparations.
Eri came home as Nachi was reading one of her schoolbooks by the fire, leaning against Keifon’s chest as he sat with his back against one of the chairs. Eri paused, watched them, and said nothing. Keifon rested his chin against the top of Nachi’s head and hoped.
Eri let him stay for dinner. He came back for dinner every day for two weeks.
Agna: Return
“Thanks for coming by, ma’am. And please check with Solei and Merkal when they come through in the spring. We’ll keep checking every six months like that. – Have a good day.”
Agna looked up, and her smile crystallized. She was barely aware that some of the remaining patients turned to track her gaze toward the door. She was barely aware that the clinic was there at all.
“Hi.” Keifon shrugged to shift one of his backpack straps. “Um...”
“H-hi. Hey. Welcome back.”
Half of the patients were silent; the other half all started talking at once. “Welcome back! I heard you went up to Yanwei. Whereabouts? I can come back later, Healer. Hey, Medic, the pain in my foot has started again, you were so good with that last year...”
They all went quiet when Agna hugged him. He lifted one gloved hand to her back and bent his face to her shoulder.
She kept it together in front of the patients. She was glad for their presence, after all. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.” He stepped back, casting an embarrassed glance at the small crowd. “Hi, everyone.”
The villagers chorused their greetings. Keifon’s clinical manner began to slip into his voice as he waved and greeted them and thanked them for their well-wishes. “I’ve got to put this pack down, and then I’ll be right back to help out.”
“You don’t have to—” Agna began to say, but he had already gone. She caught her breath, straightened her belt, and faced the next patient in line. “What seems to be the trouble?”
***
The patients kept their queue around the tent and out the door, and their conversations continued. When Keifon returned, Agna handed over his case of tools. He bowed, and a couple of the patients applauded.
Keifon took his place by the unoccupied stool and smiled at the next person in line. “Well, who’s next?”
Agna heard the basics in passing fragments, as he explained his trip to half a dozen patients. He had gone to Ceien to see his six-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She was in good health and doing well in school. Everyone was charmed, as they always were. But Agna realized that he wasn’t telling them this as part of his charm. It was a part of his real self. He didn’t have to put on a cheerful act when he talked about Nachi.
Agna found herself buoyed on his new high spirits, rallying the energy that had begun to flag over the last few stops. Even working entirely by her healing arts, she was able to keep her focus together for the rest of the day. She reflected, warming her hands over the brazier in a rare idle moment between patients, that she might buy herself some medical equipment after all. It was a good fallback. It wasn’t how the Academy instructed, but it was more important to do the best she could for the patients.
Keifon waved to a departing patient. Agna turned. They smiled, edged with the beginnings of fatigue. Neither would stop, not yet, even if Keifon had traveled all night to get here. Their team was back together. Nothing could stop them.
Another villager poked her head into the door. “Excuse me?”
The team worked together, as it once had, as it was meant to do.
***
The stream of patients slowed in the late afternoon, as the sun began to slide behind the mountains. Agna crunched into the apple that Masa had packed in her lunch. Nelle had learned of Keifon’s arrival when she’d delivered Agna’s lunch. They had shooed her off at the time, too busy to talk. Agna thought about inviting her back to their tent later for a little welcoming party. Later.
“So... it seems like you’ve been doing well.”
She looked up. He was repacking his valise, lining up the bottles and tools across the examination table. Agna looked around the tent. “I think I have.”
Keifon pulled a neat roll of bandages out of the valise. “The crowd management is working beautifully.”
“Yeah, you know, it calms people down if they chat beforehand. Takes their minds off of whatever the problem is, I think. Though some of the time, they’re giving one another bad advice.”
“Heh.”
“I hope it’s all right that I used your stuff. It was a big help.”
“Oh,
it’s fine. I’m glad you got some use out of it.” He swirled the contents of one of the bottles and made a note. “How have you been? Otherwise.”
“...All right.” She rushed on, embarrassed. “But tell me about your trip! I heard that Nachi is doing well, that’s great.” She silenced the rest, because it would come out more petty and selfish than she meant it to sound. How’s her mother? Did you see Kazi? I’m glad you came back at all.
“Yeah. It was so good to see her. Just... I needed to.” He crossed his arms, leaving the tools aside. “I can’t thank you enough for taking care of things here.”
Agna shrugged and leaned against the edge of the side table. “It’s what we had to do. Work together. Right?”
“Right.”
Interrupted now and then by a few straggling patients, he told her about the trip. He told her about taking his daughter to the park, listening to her thoughts about school and her friends and her life. Agna wasn’t sure she had seen him this happy before – this much at peace.
“She’s happy there,” Keifon concluded. Night came early now, and the two of them sat by the examination table in the lamp’s circle of light with the brazier on the floor between them. Agna doodled in ink in the margins of her logbook as she listened. They could have gone home by now, but she didn’t want to move. Not yet. Keifon seemed happy to stay late tonight, too. “I did a lot of thinking about... what to do, how to do right by her and by – by everyone. And... by me, too. Thinking that I should remember to do right by myself, somewhere in there, too.”
“You should. I’m glad you’ve been thinking about it.”
“I think... I think after you go, I am going to ask for a transfer to the base at Wildern, after all.” He took a long breath. “Eri said she would be all right with me visiting.”
“That’s... terrific,” Agna made herself say. After you go. She cleared her throat and tried to be sensible and strong. They were having a reasonable discussion about their plans. The spring was real; it was coming. It would happen whether she wanted it to happen or not.
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