All Lovely Things

by SadArticle

'Providing a paycheck and looking in on them at bedtime would no longer be enough, he would have to learn how to care for them like a mother as well as being their father. The prospect terrified him.' Mourning Mrs Finch - my take on the death of Atticus' beloved wife. Please read and review!

All Lovely Things

A/N: The title comes from a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay, 'Passer Mortuus Est', which begins 'Death devours all lovely things', which I thought was quite fitting. And yes, I know that Scout's mother is called Jean Finch in The Book That Shall Not Be Named, but I think 'Louise' suits her better! Completely unbeta'd, so constructive criticism welcome.

She was dressed in white organdie, reminding him of the early days in Montgomery. He could still picture her, hanging on her elderly father's arm and shimmering with the unchallenged happiness of her twenty-odd years. A fellow member of the House had introduced Atticus to the redoubtable Judge Jeremy Graham, and the old man had granted him the pleasure of meeting Miss Frances Louise, his baby girl.

Enchanted, Atticus told her earnestly.

Flattered, she had answered with a smile.

When he asked her for a dance, even though just watching the foxtrot tired him out, the Judge's daughter told him she was waiting for the waltz. Atticus put forward that she was merely humouring an old man, and she owned that was true – but she always saved the waltz for her daddy and calling him an old man was hardly polite. Her soft brown eyes had glittered with amusement.

Would they meet again?

The next dance would be his, she'd promised.

His first frustrating term in the state legislature had kept him in the capital for over a month, naively butting his head against the 1901 Constitution by day, and meeting with Louise at her father's house on an evening. She gave him a reason to stay. By the time Atticus returned to Maycomb, he knew that she was named for her grandmother and only her daddy called her Frances, that she was an only child because her mother had died suddenly when she was a baby, her favourite authors were Jane Austen and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and she hated cut flowers. He also knew what had been missing from his life: the happiness she brought him.

The woman he had fallen in love with was a vision in delicate layers, drifting along on her own summer breeze, and that was the way he wanted to remember her.

Of course Alexandra disapproved, saying a party dress was not right to bury someone in, but what did it matter? And he wanted her to look pretty for Jem. If the boy had to say goodbye to his mother, there was no need to rob him of his last happy associations of her for the sake of etiquette. Why not leave the children with snatches of lullabies and tunes hummed over their cribs, the scent of rose water on a favourite teddy, and a sunlit rocking chair by the window? There was no escaping the cold, silent truth, but memories were kinder.

She looked so beautiful still, wearing her mother's antique lace shawl and her hair done in waves, that she might almost have been taking her afternoon nap. Except that when he brushed her cheek or pressed her hand, she was cold to the touch, dispelling in an instant the appearance of temporary repose. On hot summer days, her complexion would take on a buttermilk glow, like the sunshine was just beneath her skin and not beating down from the sky. When Atticus returned to the office after dinner, she would set Jem down in his room, then bathe the baby in cool water and let her sleep or amuse herself in her crib, before folding herself gracefully onto this very bed to relax for an hour or two. A child of the south, there was a natural serenity in everything she did.

Atticus only wished that he too could drift away for a while, forgetting what had happened and what was to come. He rocked back in his chair beside the bed and crossed his legs, heavy with weariness but unable to rest. His place was at her side, and he would not leave her until he had to.

'Forgive me,' he pleaded, sighing out the words, 'for not being here when you needed me.'

Pushing up his glasses, Atticus pinched the bridge of his nose until it hurt. He took a deep breath and held it, forcing down the hard knot of grief that had risen into his throat. Now was not the time, with so much to be done. When he opened his eyes, he had to blink hard before Louise's calm face cleared before him, but then the moment was passed. For now.

'Mister Finch, sir?' Calpurnia knocked again on the closed bedroom door. 'Are you ready?'

Jem, Atticus remembered guiltily. He'd forgotten his promise, letting time get away from him. Smoothing his brow distractedly, Atticus rose from the chair. 'Thank you, Cal,' he said, his voice thick with unshed tears.

Crossing the foot of the bed, he glanced at Louise again, as though she might appear different somehow. But she looked the same, youthful and at peace. Atticus hoped Jem would see that, too.

His six year old son was waiting for him in the hall. Atticus met Cal's eyes, brimming with compassion, and followed the line of her arm down to where she held Jem's small hand in hers.

'Hello, son,' he whispered, and held out his own trembling fingers.

Jem reached for him with his free hand, linking the two most important people left to him, saving his baby sister. Then Cal let him go, lifting her apron up to her mouth. She hurried towards the kitchen, mumbling something about visitors, and suddenly it was just the two of them.

'Is Momma in there?' Jem asked.

Atticus could only nod, holding tight to his son's hand over the threshold.

'Is she better now?'

Lord, what to say? Jem was too young to be comforted by the usual polite phrases, but Atticus couldn't bring himself to use that other word.

After witnessing his mother collapse in the living room, Jem had been told by Doctor Reynolds that she had fallen and couldn't get up. The women who had descended on the house in stages, from Maudie Atkinson across the street, thankfully managing to hold off Stephanie Crawford, to Alexandra, travelling in relative urgency down from the Landing, had naturally made a fuss of the children but insisted on keeping Jem away from his mother's body. Atticus didn't know what Jem, an inquisitive and thoughtful child, might have overheard from his room, or how much he really understood about all the comings and goings, the stranger's tears and gifts of food, that had already taken over the house since his mother's fall that morning.

'No, son,' he finally replied. 'She –'

Atticus let out a wavering breath, then pressed his lips together before the sigh became a moan. She had passed on, gone to heaven – she was dead. Oh, why had he pushed Alexandra away? He was sure she would make a better job of explaining this then he was.

Jem was peering past his father's legs at the bed. Atticus turned and looked at Louise through the boy's eyes. He saw his mother resting on top of the bedspread instead of folding back the rose cover like she normally did. He saw that she was wearing her best white dress instead of the blue and white one she'd had on that morning. Her hands were neatly folded over her chest, not lying loosely at her sides, with Grandma Graham's old lace shawl draped around her shoulders.

Atticus saw that she was still and silent and strangely distant from them.

Jem did, too.

'Hush, hush now,' Atticus breathed into his young son's hair, scooping him up into his arms and holding on tightly. In return, Jem clung to Atticus with frantic urgency, hooking coltish arms and legs around his father's solid presence.

He could feel his son's hot, damp face against his neck and, close to his own heart, the sobs that were shaking Jem's body. Atticus said nothing, because there was nothing to say at that moment, but tried to step forward into the hall to call for Cal or Alexandra.

Jem screamed into his ear. 'No, don't send me away!' He tried to scramble even higher, shinning up Atticus' chest. 'Let me stay with you, Daddy, please!'

Hearing Jem call him 'daddy' almost broke Atticus' fragile resolve. His infant son's precocious mimicry of how other grown-ups addressed his parents had initially been a source of amusement and public embarrassment for Atticus and Louise, but the habit seemed firmly entrenched after the novelty had worn off. 'Weese' had quickly reverted to 'Momma', but no amount of coaching could lessen the attraction of his father's tricky name. Only the loss of his mother.

'Of course you can stay with me,' Atticus promised. 'I would never send you away, son, ever.' He rocked Jem from side to side, smoothing the boy's hair. 'But – I have to be with your mother. Wouldn't you rather go to Cal for now –?'

'I want Momma!' Jem sobbed, his tears soaking Atticus' shoulder. 'Wake her up, Daddy!'

Atticus turned into the bedroom, closing the door softly with his elbow. He returned to the chair, bouncing Jem like he would dandle Jean Louise on his knee, and manoeuvred himself between the wooden arms of the rocker. Pushing his feet against the varnished floor, he set the chair in its calming motion.

The truth was that he had been ready to send Jem away, shying away from his usual candour in the face of a little boy's confusion and grief, but the decision was no longer his to make. Jem did not want to leave his father, and Atticus realised that they needed to stay together, now more than ever before. He didn't know how he was going to manage with a six year old son and a baby daughter to care for on top of everything else, but there was no use in getting ahead of his worries.

Today would be the longest, toughest struggle they would have to face, not next week or next year. Saying goodbye came first, for Jem's sake and for the baby. For Atticus, letting go came at a price.

He blamed himself, for not being there, for not picking up on the signs, if there had been any. Doctor Reynolds said there was nothing he could have done, and Atticus' younger brother Jack agreed, but Atticus couldn't stop hearing Cal's voice on the telephone: Come home quick, Mister Finch. Come home.

And when he looked at Louise, neatly laid out in her best dress, all he could think of was finding her on the living room floor, her hair in a pool of spilled sweet tea. She must have felt ill that morning before he left for work, and said nothing. Had she been paler than usual, or flushed, hot or cold, looking tired? He couldn't recall. Had she been hiding her poor health from him? That would be like her. When she was carrying the babies, and for months afterwards with Jean Louise, his young wife had suffered from fainting spells, but hated being fussed over.

A weak heart, Doctor Reynolds explained, could give out any time without warning, and Jack had reminded him of Louise's own mother, but Atticus still blamed himself.

'Isn't your mother's shawl pretty?' he asked lightly, glancing over Jem's head at Louise. The late afternoon sun filtering through the half-closed shutters gave a golden lustre to her skin and hair, like a burnished effigy in a church. 'Came all the way from Normandy in France, many, many years ago.'

Jem would not turn to look at his mother, sitting resolutely with his back to her on Atticus' lap. He was no longer crying, but his eyes still swam in tears that spilled over in silent streams and he took a deep, quivering breath every now and again. Atticus wondered if he had done the right thing bringing him in here.

'Were you scared when you saw her fall down like that?'

Jem nodded slowly. The silence in the room was heavier than the air, and they could hear sounds from the rest of the house: Calpurnia in the kitchen, the hushed tones of a man and a woman talking in the living room. Jack had returned from town, then.

'It didn't hurt her, son,' Atticus lied, wanting to believe that she hadn't suffered but not knowing if she had been in any pain. 'Doctor Reynolds said she would hardly have known what was happening.'

'Is Momma's heart broken?'

Atticus shivered and had to grip the arms of the rocking chair to control the shaking.

'Yes,' he croaked, and had to clear his throat. 'Yes, I suppose her heart is broken, in a way.'

Jem looked up at him, before turning his head enough to glimpse his mother's motionless form from the corner of his eye. 'Uncle Jack said she has a poorly heart, but you can't make it better like you can a headache.' He met Atticus' eyes with his own, so much like hers that he struggled to hold that searching gaze. 'Ain't there anything you can do, Atticus?'

The only answer he could give was a tight shake of his head. Atticus pulled his son into his arms and rocked back in the chair, holding him so tightly that Jem started to struggle. He released him, but Jem stayed where he was, curling up in his father's lap. The warm scent of his hair, mixed with a sharper tang from the soap Cal used to wash the children's clothes, was so achingly familiar and comforting that Atticus was overwhelmed.

He a let a single tear fall, welling under the lenses of his glasses and tracing his cheek toward the angle of his jaw, before he awkwardly lifted a shoulder to blot away the moisture. Jem moved with him, clinging to his chest like a limpet, and didn't seem to notice that his father was crying too.

Jem. The heat and the weight of his son sitting on his knee, with one small hand curled around his neck, reminded Atticus that he was now solely responsible for two young lives. Providing a paycheck and looking in on them at bedtime would no longer be enough, he would have to learn how to care for them like a mother as well as being their father. The prospect terrified him.

'Atticus?' Jack murmured behind the door, tapping politely on the wood. 'May I come in?'

Brushing at his face, Atticus coughed quietly and planted his feet firmly on the floor. 'Come on in, Jack,' he called, thankful when his voice didn't betray him. His brother poked his head into the room. 'Is the – is Jacob Stowe with you?' he asked him.

Jack shook his head. 'Not yet.' He took in the incongruous sight of Louise laid out on the bed, and then turned to Atticus and Jem. 'Want me to take him?'

Touching chin to chest, Atticus peered at his son's drooping head. He was asleep, snuffling shallow breaths through a runny nose, his long lashes fanned out over dark shadows beneath his eyes. The fragility of his expression brought a lump to Atticus' throat, which he strived to swallow back down in front of Jack.

'I hadn't even noticed.'

'The baby's awake. Alexandra's nursing her.'

Atticus smiled sadly. 'Not such a baby any longer,' he mused. 'She'll be calling me Atticus before you know it.'

'Not if Alexandra can help it,' Jack said, lifting his brows.

He walked to the foot of the bed, regarding the doll-like features of his sister-in-law. Being a doctor occasionally made him a witness to death as well as a guardian of life, but his professional experience had yet to harden his heart against the loss and grief and emptiness left behind. Jack loved Louise and he would miss her, but what he couldn't stand was to see his brother in so much pain.

'I'm so sorry,' he sighed, gripping the iron rail at the end of the bed.

'I know,' Atticus said quietly. Silence rushed to fill the space between them. 'Thank you for coming, Jack. You and Alexandra both. Heaven knows what I – '

Jack held up a hand. 'Oh, hush. We're family.' He turned around, keeping his eyes fixed on Jem. 'Come on, let me set this one down in his room.'

Atticus saw the tears in his brother's eyes and looked away. 'I can manage,' he said, sliding to the edge of the chair with one arm wrapped tightly around Jem. 'Can you wait here? I don't want Louise to be left alone.'

Jack gave a nod. No words would come.

'Let me check on Jean Louise, and ask Alexandra if she'll sit with Jem, then I'll – ' Atticus levered himself out of the chair with a grunt of effort. He waved Jack away when he stepped forward. 'Is Calpurnia still here?'

'Kitchen,' Jack managed to say. 'Trying to find space for all the food. There are dishes and platters on every free surface – it looks like Christmas morning at the Landing.'

Atticus smiled. 'People are kind, that's all. They do what they can.'

'Atticus?' Jack stopped him at the door. 'Are you sure you're all right?'

'Ask me that in a week, and we'll see.'

He carried Jem down the hall to the baby's room and looked in. Alexandra, wearing an apron over the navy blue dress she had arrived in, was perched on the edge of Louise's pine rocker with Jean Louise on her knee. His two year old daughter was resisting all efforts to be nursed, chattering away to herself and pulling on her aunt's pearl necklace.

'She's been asleep all afternoon,' he told her. 'Guess she'll be wanting her supper now. Cal will make her something.'

Jean Louise heard his voice and flung herself forwards to see her father. 'Clap clap!' she announced, smacking her hands together energetically.

Atticus grinned. 'Clap hands for daddy,' he sang to her. 'Louise has been teaching her that for months,' he explained to his sister. His face fell suddenly, like he'd been winded.

Alexandra clamped Jean Louise to her shoulder and rose to meet him. She stared blankly for a moment, then decided to act instead of talk. 'Poor little mite, lay him down and let me take care of them both.'

'Alexandra, please forgive me for what I said to you before,' he said, reaching out to stroke his daughter's hair.

She shook her head briskly. 'Oh nonsense, you don't have to apologise to me.'

He smiled at Jean Louise, who was trying to pat his hand. 'Only – I don't know what to do.'

Alexandra sighed. 'You'll put Jeremy down in his room, tell Calpurnia to make up a dish for the baby, and leave the rest to your brother and me. No one's asking you to do anything, Atticus.'

'Thank you for coming.'

'Put him down before you drop him, brother.'

Shifting Jem's weight in his arms, Atticus touched his free hand to her wrist. Similarly encumbered with Jean Louise, who was watching their silent exchange with interest, Alexandra linked her fingers through his. She gave his hand a reassuring press, which he returned, and then let him go. Atticus started for the connecting door between the children's rooms.

'Take baby!' Jean Louise shouted, holding her hands out to him. Alexandra tried to pull her back, fighting to keep hold of the toddler while she kicked and pushed to escape. 'Take baby, 'cus!'

'Sh-shh!' Alexandra was almost panting with exertion. 'Quiet now, don't wake your brother!'

'Let her go, Alexandra,' Atticus laughed, 'before you drop her.'

Jean Louise's legs started working before she hit the ground, and she ran like a wind-up toy to her father. Atticus gave her his fingers and led her into Jem's bedroom, smiling at her determined expression. 'Your little gypsy,' Louise called her, despairing of the straight black hair that resisted all attempts at 'prettifying'. Secretly proud that his daughter took after him, Atticus said he hoped colouring was all she'd picked up, otherwise the child would be half-blind before she left school.

'I don't want to go to bed,' Jem suddenly piped up. 'I ain't tired,' he yawned.

'It's getting late, Jem. Your aunt has gone to find you both some supper, then she'll help you get ready for bed,' Atticus explained, letting him slide to the floor. 'Come over here and sit with me for a while.'

'I can get ready by myself.' Jem weaved over to his bed and clambered on, sitting with his legs pulled up to his chest. He laid his cheek on one knee and surveyed the rest of the room with dull eyes.

'Baby get up!' Jean Louise demanded, lifting her arms. Atticus seated himself on the edge of the bed and then swung her onto his lap.

'Why's she call herself 'baby' all the time?' Jem complained listlessly.

'I suppose 'cause 'Jean Louise' is a bit of a mouthful for a two year old, son,' Atticus told him. 'You were having a hard time with your name, when you were her age. Why do you think we call you 'Jem'?'

'Doggy!' she shouted, grasping at the stuffed dog on Jem's pillow.

Atticus said nothing, but waited to see what Jem would do. The toy, once a white fox terrier with nappy fur that could be pulled around on a wooden base, was now in a sorry state. Jem had both disabled and outgrown its usefulness as a plaything, but 'Yaps' was his oldest toy and still held pride of place on top of his pillow.

'Not for you!' Jem grumbled, staring at her from beneath his brows. He looked to Atticus. 'She can't have him, Atticus, tell her!' he whined.

'Son, she can't hurt him.'

'No!' Jem flung himself backwards, grabbed the dog by its ear and slung it across the room. 'She can't have ev'rything!' he sobbed.

Jean Louise, startled by Jem's temper and still wanting the dog, started to cry.

'Oh, Jem,' Atticus sighed.

-XxXxXxXx-

When morning came, he found himself in another chair beside a different bed, watching over her children. Tired and aching still, Atticus moved stiffly, sitting forward in the pine rocker. Removing his glasses, he ran a hand over his face, rubbing at the scratchy stubble that told him he had got through the first night somehow.

There was a blanket over his knees, and his shoes were neatly tucked together next to his chair. He couldn't remember how either of them had got there. Atticus folded the woollen cover, running the satin trim through his fingers, and draped it over the foot of Jem's bed.

His son was sleeping, deeply if not peacefully, with one arm curled around his stuffed dog, holding Yaps in a headlock. After retrieving his neglected toy from the corner, Jem had simply refused to part with him, even after Alexandra carried Jean Louise back into her own room. When Cal made him pancakes for his supper, Jem ate them like biscuits with one hand, and later let Atticus undress him for bed, helpfully swapping Yaps from arm to arm so that he could take off his shirt. Alexandra tried cajolery, bribing him with a slice of Miss Maudie's cake, and the distraction of a bedtime story (two!), but Atticus told her to leave him be. If Yaps was what it took to stop those tears and let Jem sleep, he could carry the dog around until it fell to pieces.

The connecting door to the baby's room stood open, and he could hear her stirring in her crib. The comforting aroma of coffee brewing in the kitchen permeated the air, and the chatter of birds broke through the drapes along with the first beams of bright sunlight. Atticus closed his tired, swollen eyes and tried to pretend that nothing had changed. When he heard the familiar snick and squeak of the nursery door opening, his heart shot into his throat.

'Louise?'

Slippered footsteps crossed the floor towards him, and he knew who would be standing there before he opened his eyes, but that brief illusion of a dream restored finally shattered his composure.

'Oh, Atticus,' Alexandra sighed, her own voice perilously full of emotion.

The Finches were not a particularly demonstrative family, but somehow his sister managed to overcome age, self-restraint and other less natural feminine restrictions to kneel beside Atticus and draw him awkwardly into her arms, holding on while he sobbed against her shoulder.

Only the fear of waking and upsetting Jem forced him to choke down the tears and swallow his grief. He pulled away from Alexandra, reaching for the blanket to wipe his face when he couldn't find a handkerchief in his pockets.

'Forgive me,' he gasped.

'There's nothing to forgive,' she whispered, mopping her own face.

'I thought you were – I wanted –'

'I know, I know,' Alexandra said, nodding. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, brother.'

Atticus took a deep breath, straightening the stiff muscles of his back against the spindles of the rocking chair. He looked towards Jem, his son's face buried in the grey fur of his most comforting possession.

'I wanted to go with her, but I knew she would want me to stay with the children.' He spoke softly, murmuring his confession.

Alexandra looked appalled. 'Go – ?'

'To the – funeral parlour,' Atticus said, closing his eyes and missing the mantle of relief that settled over his sister's features. 'I hated watching her carried out of her own home like that, alone. I wanted to go with her.'

Alexandra eased up on her aching knees. 'She – I know,' she repeated helplessly.

What could she have said? 'She won't be alone'? Jacob Stowe's funeral parlour was not home, with her family around her, after all. 'She wouldn't know the difference'? Perhaps she would, nobody had ever returned to share the secret. But to those left behind – especially to Atticus, Jeremy and Jean Louise – the emptiness of the master bedroom after the removal of Louise's body yesterday evening was but the first step in adjusting to the greater loss of a wife and mother from their lives.

Atticus suddenly pushed up from the rocker, tossing the blanket onto the seat behind him. Caught out, Alexandra struggled to her feet in his wake. 'Sister, can you stay with the children this morning? I need to go.'

'Please wait and have some breakfast, Atticus,' she pleaded, lowering her voice to add, 'I don't want the children to wake up and find you gone too.'

He looked down at his motherless son. 'I'm coming back.'

'Right now, brother – I'm not sure that will be enough.'

-XxXxXxXx-

After a patchy shave in the bathroom, Atticus went to get changed, aware that obeying Alexandra was easier than arguing. He returned to the bedroom that he had shared with Louise for six happy years, not expecting to see her there but unprepared for the many ways in which she still lingered – her jewellery box and hair brush on the dressing table, the ghost of her perfume in the air, even her smiling face in their wedding portrait on the mantelshelf.

Stumbling towards the neatly made bed, where every last crease and indentation had been smoothed out by some well-intentioned hand, Atticus crawled across his own side to bury his face in Louise's pillow. How could she be gone for ever?

'How are you feeling, honey?'

Half reclining against a pile of pillows, book in hand and bare feet crossed at the ankles, Louise Finch didn't appear to have a care in the world. When her husband came home midday to check on her, she was ready with a reassuring smile.

'Well, I'm finer than frog hair,' she said, holding out her hand. 'Stop hanging off the door and come over here.'

'You're supposed to be resting.'

'I've been resting all morning, I swear,' she promised.

'Mm hm.' Atticus bent down to tidy a pair of upturned leather shoes, still warm from a pair of active feet, and on his way back up caught sight of the book she had just tossed aside. 'You finished reading that yesterday.'

'I missed a page,' she shrugged, turning her caramel eyes on him. 'Oh, Atticus, how can Doctor Reynolds expect me to get any 'bed rest' with two young children to look after?'

'Cal's here.'

'Cal has enough to do without turning nursemaid, hon,' Louise lectured. 'Anyway, I do feel fine. I've been taking it easy, sitting down when I can. No more fainting fits.'

'Yesterday's spell was bad enough,' he sighed, lifting her legs at the knees so he could perch next to her. 'And this is nothing to do with expecting a baby – Jean Louise is nearly one and a half.'

'I know what you're thinking,' she said, moving to the middle of the bed and patting the covers in invitation. 'But I swear, my love – I am not my momma, and a few dizzy spells are not going to finish me off.'

Atticus eased himself back against the pillows and Louise curled naturally into his arms. He rested his cheek on the top of her head, touching his lips to her hair until she tilted her face up to his.

'And besides, my heart belongs to you,' she added, planting a quicker but no less inviting kiss on the corner of his mouth.

'And mine is yours,' Atticus told the empty room. 'For the rest of my life.'

-XxXxXxXx-

Frances Louise Graham Finch was laid to rest two days later. Calpurnia tried her best to keep Jem and the baby distracted at home, with sugar bread and songs and stories, because Alexandra insisted that a funeral was no place for young children. Along with Judge Graham, who had been taken ill upon hearing of his only daughter's sudden passing, they were the only members of Louise's family not present at the service. Even Mrs Dubose managed to attend, weeping for the loss of such a lovely woman.

Atticus stood by the graveside of his young wife, numb with grief. Jack and Alexandra stayed close by his side but otherwise left him alone. He was grateful for the gestures of kindness and sympathy shown to him, dutifully thanking friends and neighbours for coming, but he couldn't share in their memories of Louise. She was still such a vital part of his life that even talking of her in the past tense seemed a betrayal. And when Maycomb had finished mourning her death with a communal sad, slow shake of the head, they could all go home – Judge Taylor to his wife and Stephanie Crawford to her gossip – and carry on as before.

Atticus felt like he'd had a limb amputated and been given a crutch with which he would have to try and walk again.

'Don't expect too much from people, Atticus,' Maudie Atkinson told him gently. 'Nobody knows what losing a husband or a wife is like until it happens to them, but people still care.'

He met her eyes. 'I know. Everyone's being so kind, but I – I just feel lost, Maudie, and that's the truth. Seems like the children are the only reason I have to keep going. They're all I have left of her now.'

'Well, they should keep you busy for the next ten years or so, and after that you'll be too old to care.' She gave a wry smile. 'You're really very lucky in more ways than you know, Atticus. Jem's a beautiful boy and Jean Louise is a happy, lively little thing – they can only bring you pleasure in the difficult times to come. In some ways, I envy you.'

Atticus stared openly before remembering himself. 'Maudie –'

'I've been where you are, Atticus,' she said, looking down at the wedding band on her right hand. 'I know that feeling you describe. Even now, all these years later, I still cry for him. The best you can do is keep busy – or find love again with someone new.'

Atticus shook his head. 'No. There'll never be anyone else.'

'Not now, but –'

'Not ever, Maudie,' he sighed. 'I'm grateful for every moment I had with Louise – and all that she gave me – but I don't expect to be blessed in the same way twice. What about you?'

'Oh, I'm content enough,' she said. 'I have my memories, and what I like to call the three f's: faith, flowers and friends – though not necessarily in that order.' Atticus chuckled. He could guess which of the three she ranked first. 'Of course I wish that Harry was still here, but wishes don't wash dishes – or mow the grass and repair arbours. So I get on with living in the only way I know.'

'You are a very wise woman, Maudie,' Atticus smiled. 'And a good friend.'

'Shoot, there goes my reputation.' She rested her hand on his arm. 'Take care of your little reasons, Atticus – and yourself. If you ever need a wise woman's advice, or just a slice of my very special lane cake and someone to talk to, my porch is always open.'

-XxXxXxXx-

Afterwards, with Jack on the train back to Nashville, reluctant to abandon his brother but ready to go home, and Alexandra protesting that she had expected to stay on longer and help around the house, Atticus gathered his children to him. Tucking them both up in Jem's bed, he picked out The Velveteen Rabbit for a bedtime story, which quickly settled Jean Louise to sleep but went seemingly unheard by her brother.

'"She was quite the loveliest fairy in the whole world,"' Atticus ploughed on. '"Her dress was of pearl and dewdrops, and there were flowers round her neck and in her hair, and her face was like the most perfect flower of all."'

He wouldn't have known that Jem was crying at all, so soft and silent were the boy's tears, but for one stray whimper. 'Oh, son,' Atticus whispered, leaning over the bed to comfort him, the book pressed between them.

'Why did Momma go?' he sobbed into his father's shirt front. 'I love her so much!'

'I know, son, I love her too.'

'Then why?'

Atticus buried his face in Jem's hair until he was sure his voice was strong enough to answer. 'I know your momma would never, ever choose to leave you, or Jean Louise,' he started, then swallowed before he could add, 'or me. That's why she will always be here with us, Jem. Not so we can see her, sitting in her rocking chair to read you a story, maybe, or visiting with Miss Maudie across the road like she used to, but here all the same.'

Jem's natural curiosity was slowly overcoming his distress. 'How's that, Atticus?'

'Whenever we're missing her, all we have to do is think about her – even talk to her – and she'll be here,' Atticus explained, wishing that he was six years old himself. 'In the way we remember her.'

Jem was silent, mulling this over. 'I'm thinking about her now, Atticus.'

'Me too, son. Me too.'

FIN