I took a firm grasp of Windstalker's mane and swung upward astride him and took off down the valley as fast as Windstalker could go and for a moment I was free of everything.
It was almost dark when I reached my home nestled in among the craggy rocks and great trees of the private mountain that I called home. I slid off of Windstalker and smacked him on the rump, and he took off for the lower meadow, where his lady friends were. I made my way up the native stone stairs to the porch of my cabin home. I saw Deshavi stand up from a porch swing in the evening gloom. She looked anxious about something and after my initial surprise at seeing her here I guessed at why she had come.
I went over to her and extremely uncharacteristic of her she mumbled out quickly, "Can I stay here?"
"Since when have you ever been unwelcome?"
I moved past her and sat down, while she still stood seeming uncertain of something. I reached out and tugged on her hand and she seemed to crumple down onto the bench swing beside me and I put my arm around her to draw her against me. She came easily, even as her head lay down on my shoulder. I let my cheek rest against the top of her head for a moment. It was so good to be like this again.
"I'm sorry about your mother." I said softly.
"What are you sorry for? You've done nothing but provide for her ever since father died!"
"Still I am sorry that you have someone to call mother, who cares so little for either living herself or anyone else who is living."
"She looks twenty years older since last I saw her! I think she's coming unhinged mentally. I think she's crazy!"
That seemed to match up with what I'd heard.
"You don't think that will happen to me do you?" Deshavi asked.
Now there was a question to answer delicately. The only problem was that there was no way to delicately put the truth other than how I saw it.
"I think your mother's issues are all self-made and nothing that you need to worry about genetically speaking, but in some ways you follow in her steps to closely."
"I don't drink to excess or do drugs!" Deshavi exclaimed.
"No, but you don't care for yourself in other ways. There are many ways to rot one's soul. After your father's death both you and your mother internalized your grief and let bitterness grow. I know this because I did too. I still struggle with it and am often depressed by it and other things. You and your mother didn't resist the bitterness, but instead you've let it shape you into who you are today. I have money Deshavi, enough money to take care of you for the rest of your life and if I thought it would work I'd give it all to you so you would just stop doing whatever it is that you're doing when you're not here in the mountains, but I don't think your there yet."