4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
Shovels and Silence
Some farewells require shovels. Beatrix found Luke in the darkness, Duke's body cradled in his arms, grief cracking him open in ways she had never witnessed. They dug together beneath the apricot tree—the same tree where Duke once chased fallen fruit and coaxed Henri down the steps. The earth was cold. The silence was heavy. And when it was done, something else began to take root.
Beatrix arrived to find Luke already broken.
He sat on the bed with Duke's body pressed against his chest, tears streaming, shoulders curved inward as though protecting something too fragile to name. The grief in that room was not quiet—it was vast, filling every corner, pressing against the walls like something alive.
She sat beside him. She held him. She said the things that needed saying, even knowing they would not be enough.
Then they went outside.
The apricot tree stood skeletal against the winter sky, its bare branches reaching upward like arms seeking comfort that would not come. Duke had loved this garden. He had discovered the fallen fruit, had coaxed Henri beyond the safety of the decking, had filled this space with energy and mischief and life.
Now he would rest beneath it.
They dug in silence, the rhythm of shovels against earth the only conversation required. When the hole was deep enough, Luke laid Duke down with a gentleness that broke something in Beatrix's chest.
Words were spoken. Tears fell. And in the aftermath, sitting shoulder to shoulder in the cold, something shifted.
Not hope. Not yet. But the first stirring of purpose.
