a half years after Dane's death

"I presume you will see Justine sooner or later," Meggie said to Rain when she drove him to the airport. "When you do, I'd rather you didn't mention this visit to Drogheda." "If you prefer," he said. "I would only ask you to think about what I've said, and take your time." But even as he made his request, he couldn't help feeling that Meggie had reaped far more benefit from his visit than he had. When the mid-April came that was two and a half years after Dane's death, Justine experienced an overwhelming desire to see something that wasn't rows of houses. Suddenly on this beautiful day of soft spring air and chilly sun, urban London was intolerable. So she took a District Line train to Kew Gardens, pleased that it was a Tuesday and she would have the place almost to herself. Nor was she working that night, so it didn't matter if she exhausted herself tramping the byways. She knew the park well, of course. London was a joy to any Drogheda person, with its masses of formal flower beds, but Kew was in a class all its own. In the old days she used to haunt it from April to the end of October, for every month had a different floral display to offer. Mid-April was her favorite time, the period of daffodils and azaleas and flowering trees. There was one spot she thought could lay some claim to being one of the world's loveliest sights on a small, intimate scale, so she sat down on the damp ground, an audience of one, to drink it in. As far as the eye could see stretched a sheet of daffodils; in mid-distance the nodding yellow horde of bells flowed around a great flowering almond, its branches so heavy with white blooms they dipped downward in arching falls as perfect and still as a Japanese painting. Peace. It was so hard to come by. And then, her head far back to memorize the absolute beauty of the laden almond amid its rippling golden sea, something far less beautiful intruded. Rainer Moerling Hartheim, of all people, threading his careful way through clumps of daffodils, his bulk shielded from the chilly breeze by the inevitable German leather coat, the sun glittering in his silvery hair. "You'll get a cold in your kidneys," he said, taking off his coat and spreading it lining side up on the ground so they could sit on it. "How did you find me here?" she asked, wriggling onto a brown satin corner. "Mrs. Kelly told me you had gone to Kew. The rest was easy. I just walked until I found you." "I suppose you think I ought to be falling all over you in gladness, tra-la?" "Are you?" "Same old Rain, answering a question with a question. No, I'm not glad to see you. I thought I'd managed to make you crawl up a hollow log permanently." "It's hard to keep a good man up a hollow log permanently. How are you?" "I'm all right." "Have you licked your wounds enough?" No. "Well, that's to be expected, I suppose. But I began to realize that once you had dismissed me you'd never again humble your pride to make the first move toward reconciliation. Whereas I, Herzchen, am wise enough to know that pride makes a very lonely bedfellow."