Falls of the Hinterlands sontaim

boys.
his own.
children.
a wife.
heda blinked. surely he had spoken of them before. yes. no. no.
he was a father. something clenched in her gut, a ball of yarn with several different-colored strands all yanked in different directions. her brain shouted suddenly that he'd abandoned his kids, that that was the Bad Thing that had made bartholomew lay in the lion's den. 
because that was her experience with fathers. heda felt suddenly and viscerally betrayed by him, all the while grappling with the fact that this was illogical. he was not mahler. he was not her own unknown father.
and there was something else underneath it: a half-formed lump of vague jealousy.
she did not try to explore it. "maybe i could make songs." her voice was abruptly distant and she hated herself for it.
heda floated in the water very solemnly.