Sunset Valley Who tends the orchards? Who fixes up the gables?

His mother is persistent.

She continues to fuss. Another kiss pressed to his head. More tending to his leg that drew from his lungs a pitiful whimper. Her voice, unheard by folded ears, trembles through his body.

Caan is too young to understand the concepts of gratitude and resentment. The world still remained dark for him. Its voices fell upon deaf ears. The future has not come, it may not ever as far as the boy is aware. There is only the present, and it is suffering.

She does not let him sleep, to drift away into the subconscious. His only reprieve from the pain. She smears the bitter smelling salve upon him. It sticks to his skin, leaving him damp and cold. Her tending of his leg an extension of her will, as though she could mend what she had forged.

Against her belly Caan trembled. A dim star, threatening to blink out of the night sky. His will to continue shining had waned, but still he persisted. Head pressed against the night of his mother's belly, the boy continued to breathe.