for a moment erzulie thought njord might let the sorrows which had walled him away and herself as well form a barrier. but he did not. he was sensitive; he always had been. it was part of how they had got on so well, and why erzulie stood beside him as the right choice for father that year.
he struggled. it was no small wonder that he had stayed, and more that he opened to her now wanting to leave. 
"do not be apologizin'," she said softly, firstly. erzulie's silence remained open; she did not close to njord, her thoughts apparent upon her face. "i be glad you came back," she said next. the mint-gold gradient of her eyes found him now. "an' you are a good man. you simply cannot change what hurt is already felt." she knew that sobo was cold to his father, and in the context of leadership wondered if he must prove himself more.
"i do not t'ink it will always be dis way, njord. but if sapphique no longer feels a home an' more a place you feel you must always be earnin', den i understand. i could beg you to stay," she said with a breathy little sound that wished to be a laugh and failed. she would never beg. "but i t'ink you need a rest." she wanted he and his family to remain here.
but perhaps the marriage of man and woman could never assimilate into the ways of the wild seawife. and perhaps this disconnection also was what sobo needed to come into his own, a man of sapphique in ways that only he could be as a son of these shores.
"you said we," she observed. "have you spoken about dis wit meerkat?" of course he had. she would have said this to no one first but rosalyn.