Torn in more ways than one, Kagome walked next door with Sango, leaving her there with her children and neighbors. Picking up Shin, she called Inuyasha down from his gloomy perch after a few attempts. Together with him she returned to their home. They didn’t speak the whole way back. Their silent suffering lay thick and heavy upon them. Kagome had neither the strength nor the will to attempt to lift it.

In the stillness and chill of the hut, this silence seemed even more oppressive. After settling Shin down in his crib, she paced across the room to the hearth and kindled it. But the hearth fire’s warmth didn’t seem to reach her. Inuyasha sat stonily at the edge of the tatami platform. Drawing a blanket around her shoulders, Kagome sat down beside him.

“Do you want something to eat?” she asked him woodenly, after a while.

Staring blankly toward the crib, Inuyasha said, “I’m not hungry.”

Kagome nodded. She wasn’t either.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, still staring ahead. “Miroku wasn’t old. He wasn’t sick. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

Kagome hung her head, clenched her jaw. Her grief welled up in her, edged with her regrets. Her guilt and her bitter doubts.

Unable to repress them any longer, she said, “He was sick, Inuyasha.”

She felt his eyes snap to her, his youki flare. “What?”

“He was sick,” Kagome said again, trying to tamp down the traitorous quaver in her voice. “He had a heart condition.” She raised her eyes to his blistering golden stare. “For the past few years, I’d been trying to treat him. But it was only getting worse, and we both knew it.”

“You knew,” Inuyasha said through gritted teeth. “For years. And you never told me.”

“He was my patient,” Kagome said vehemently. “I respected his privacy. He didn’t want anyone to know.” She frowned, glancing away. “Mostly he didn’t want Sango-chan to know. Earlier today, I almost told her.”

“You what?” Gripping her by the shoulders, Inuyasha steered her face back to his. “What the fuck would you think to do something like that for?”

Kagome’s eyes burned. “Just like you, she was saying she didn’t understand it. Her whole world’s been ripped out from under her, and she’s struggling to come to grips with it. Who wouldn’t be?”

Inuyasha’s expression darkened thunderously. “You can’t tell her, Kagome. Not ever. Miroku’s wishes aside, what good would it do for her to know something like that now? She’ll just spend her days going back through everything in her head, beating herself up over things she can’t change, and probably wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference anyway, even if she had. You’ll be casting a cloud over all her good memories of him. That’s not how he wanted her to see him. Not how he wants his kids to remember him. You won’t be doing any of them any favors by it, trust me.” Releasing her, he scowled away. “She’s better off not knowing. I know I would be.”

Kagome swallowed, nodding. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell her.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi

Revised 11/28/23