Chapter 10: A Moment of Happiness
#10 of The Mating Season: Zaldon's Story
Chapter 10: A Moment of Happiness
"I blame myself for this," Joli said in an empty shell of a voice.
She and Zaldon were in the cemetery, a lonely place on a lonely hill just outside the moon village. Zaldon had already said his goodbyes to Alea and TayeLok, but to his daughter . . . he had avoided coming to the little pile of rocks where the symbol for Ettore's name had been scratched. He had avoided saying goodbye because doing that would somehow really make her dead. But his mother had insisted: goodbyes were necessary, she said. Zaldon needed closure: she had caught him in the nursery standing over the crib that he had built for Ettore with his own big paws. His bulging arms were folded around an invisible pup, and he was swaying back and forth, singing a lullaby in the moon wolf tongue. Joli knew in that moment that Zaldon would never let his daughter go unless he said goodbye. She even feared that he might lose his mind and start carrying around a little rag doll: she had seen many a grief-stricken mother do such a thing when an infant had been murdered in a raid.
Standing over the grave, Zaldon blinked out tears. He wiped them jerkily away with the back of his paw and demanded, "How is it your fault? Don't be stupid, Mom."
Joli shook her head. "I tried so hard to make you happy, and in the end, I only made you more miserable . . ." She took Zaldon's paw and squeezed it apologetically.
"Life is full of pain, Mom," Zaldon told her and squeezed back. "You can't shield me from life! If you could, I might as well be dead."
Joli laughed, a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "You always were smarter than me. Still, I'd rather you never had to go through this -- no parent should! Our little Ettore. Perhaps . . ." Joli stopped herself, glancing nervously at Zaldon, but he knew what she'd been thinking.
"Perhaps she shouldn't have been?" finished Zaldon. He shook his head. "No, I'm glad I knew her at all, even if it was only for a few days! She was my child, no matter how brief her life, and because of that, I will always love her. I just wish there was a piece of her . . . that I could keep safe, you know?" He sniffed and blinked out more tears as he gazed at the sad little pile of stones. Those tiny stones. It always meant a child was buried beneath.
Zaldon's ears pricked forward when Joli took off her traveling pack. She rifled in it a moment, then passed something to him. Zaldon carefully unfolded it and smiled: it was Ettore's blanket, the one Alea had sewn for their pup long before she was born. Alea was not very good at sewing -- or at anything that had to do with the traditional role of a female -- and Zaldon gave a sobbing laugh at the crude way in which Ettore's name had been sewn in the corner. He pressed the blanket to his nose and breathed. It still carried the rich downy scent of his daughter. A thrill of happiness washed over him as he remembered those few days of utter bliss: tickling Ettore, holding her high above his head as she squealed, exercising her strong little legs against his thighs so she could learn to walk faster . . . all the things he so vaguely remembered his father doing with him.
"I'm glad you were happy, Zaldy," Joli said, smiling at her son. "Even if it was just for a moment, as you say."
Still holding paws, the mother and son left the moon village, left the trading post, left the continent behind -- but Zaldon didn't leave Ettore. He carried sweet memories of her with him always in his heart.