Sun Mote Copse Won't you take my cane and hold my hand

And there it was. 

She would have expected Bronco, normally, to simply tell her what he was or wasn't going to do. But now, it seemed as though he was stepping into a new level of maturity, and was asking rather than simply making his own decisions. "Oh sweetheart," She said softly, and her voice hitched. She could tell that the thought of calling someone else Dad upset him- and that some part of him would do so, if she asked him to- but she couldn't. 

She drew close to him and leaned against her son, placing her head on his shoulder. "No, sweetheart. No, you don't. Your Dad...Your Dad is your Dad. And we keep him in our hearts," Cue the tears she'd held back previously, "And we remember him, and he'll always be your Dad, no matter what," She said. She pulled back, and wiped her foreleg against her cheek to sweep the tears away. "The new babies...They'll call him Dad. But they'll call me Mom, and they'll call you Brother," She said, and she inhaled deeply. "And then I imagine you'll teach them all the other words to call people but please, Bronco, wait until they're at least done teething to teach them bad words," She said with a sad laugh.