My Brother's Keeper

Jean excused herself rather quickly after Ruth Dempster haltingly proclaimed that she wouldn't be able to go on now that Ben had died. She went to the kitchen with the tea things and washed some things up.

Being in the house again, being with a woman after she'd been told her husband had died. Ruth was right, it was just like when Christopher didn't come home. Only Christopher hadn't been out drinking and gambling when he didn't come home. Christopher had been gone for months and months, fighting in a war on a foreign shore that he hadn't believed in. Jean had been left right where she was now, in the kitchen of that farmhouse.

All of a sudden, it was more than she could bear. The walls were closing in, and Jean needed to escape. And wasn't that just the icing on the cake? Somehow, someway, Jean had always seemed to need to escape. But usually it wasn't so easy as going out the back door and standing at the edge of the field.

The air on the farm was different than it was in town. Even the Blake house, which wasn't so close to the bustle of the high street, didn't have air like the farm. And not just any farm. This farm. Her farm. Their farm.

Jean gazed out upon wilting heads of lettuce, her mind swirling with all manner of thoughts. Today, of all days, she wanted to be here. She was lucky to have the opportunity to accompany Lucien and Charlie to the farm, to be able to stand on the ground where she had raised her sons, where she had once loved her husband, where she had experienced the best and worst of life.

But everything was so different. The Goldtooth Aloe might still be growing where Jean had planted it all those years ago, but it was bigger and wilder than before. Jean was different, too. In so many ways, she'd not grown bigger or wilder as the aloe had. She knew her place much better than she had when she was young. She had long forgotten the rebellious dreams of her youth, the dreams she and Christopher had shared when they lived here together. And yet, in so many more ways, she was freer than she'd been on the farm. The crops grew in their rows and in their plots and never dared spread their tendrils too far beyond. Jean had dipped her toes into adventure and ended up swimming in it, thanks to Lucien.

Oh, Lucien. That was another cause for her discomfort today. She missed Christopher still, each and every day. But she missed him less…desperately, perhaps was the word for it. The ache in her heart caused by his death was no longer on the forefront of her being. Instead, it had been overtaken by a different kind of ache. This was not an ache of loss but an ache of longing. For all that Jean Beazley was still nothing more than a poor farmer's wife who dreamed of a wider world, this man in whose house she lived had awakened something inside her. Jean wanted. She wanted so much. She wanted excitement. She wanted to learn. She wanted to help people and solve mysteries and stand at Lucien's side through it all.

And oh how she wanted Lucien! Only a few weeks had gone by since their fateful kiss, and she had not gone an hour without thinking about it since. But today was not for such things. Today was to reflect and remember. Today was to honor Christopher, the man whose ring she still wore. Today was a day to let that ache of loss take back its place, dominating her heart. She did not feel this way every day, nor did she want to. But today, today she would feel it.

The sound of the back door opening and closing startled her slightly. Jean did not turn, but she knew it was Lucien walking towards her. She could tell by the sounds of his footsteps, the rhythm of his gait. And in spite of it all, in spite of where she was standing and the heaviness of her heart, a little flicker of hope sparked inside her. And for just one moment, Jean smiled.