85 A Cold Dusk

[The Gradral Household]

Only a day had gone by since Amice's funeral, but the atmosphere of utter grief had yet to be lifted off of the Gradral household. 

Reynard shuffled past his mother's bed and slid down all the empty or half-empty medicine bottles into a wastebasket. He put the basket on the floor and turned to make his mother's bed. It had been creased and messed up when her body was being lifted to be taken to the mortuary so that it could be treated for the burial. He had been one who had lifted her, and since it was his fault that his mother's bed had become messy, it was given that he made it as well.

Tenderly, Reynard lifted the sheet his mother had used to cover herself with and carefully folded it into four sections before laying it neatly at the foot of the bed. Then he smoothed out all the wrinkles on the sheet she had laid on.