Every year since I started hunting, I have spent time with my family around Yuletide. Of all of these years, only one was when my mother was still around. She died a few months after then, and upon hearing the news I once again returned from the wild to grieve with my dad and my sister.
I remember the last conversation I had with her. It was Yule, and the sun had set, and I got a fire going in the fireplace. We all gathered around and sat there in silence; I read a book, my sister pet the dog (I can't remember which one, she had a few by that point), my mother was knitting, and my dad had fallen asleep. The silence was eventually broken by my dad's signature snore.
Annoyed, my mother started a conversation to distract herself from the legendarily loud noises of my father's slumber. "So, Wincer, how long did you say you were staying?" she asked me, not looking up from her knitting.
"I'm leaving tomorrow after breakfast, mom, I told you that already," I answered, not looking up from my book.
"Ah, yes, I'm sure you did. My memory isn't what it used to be, you know."
"I know."
There was silence once more, only filled by the deep and airy sounds of snoring.
"Can't you stay a while longer?" my mother asked, finally looking up from her knitting in a mix of pleading with me and annoyance with my dad. "I'm sure Gib wouldn't mind, he's got a family too."
I sighed and prepared myself to break the news to her once again. Her memory really wasn't what it used to be, and her bouts of illness over the past months had made her very forgetful. I had quit my apprenticeship in Bree under Gib Heathstraw earlier that year to become a hunter, and since then I've had to tell my mother half a dozen times, and considering she always tried to dissuade me from that career path, it hadn't been pleasant any of those times, and it wasn't getting better.
"I, uh, don't work for Gib anymore, you know," I said as I kept my eyes locked firmly on the book, refusing to meet my mother's gaze.
"Oh! No! I didn't know! What, was there some sort of disagreement?"
"No, none of that. I just realized I don't want to work with wood anymore, mother. I never did."
"Then what do you have to leave tomorrow for, if you don't have a job anymore?" she asked, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she thought that she had cornered me on that one.
"I do have a job, though. I've told you about this many times, maybe you ought to write it down."
"No, no, I can remember. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I can remember this. Don't tell me."
We sat in silence for the next ten minutes as my mother tried to wrack her brain for what I was doing those days, and surely at some point she forgot her quest and went back to knitting. Ellie got up and went to bed with her dog, uninterested and annoyed at the conversation my mother and I were having, since she had heard it many times before. My father's snoring had died down for a while, but eventually it returned to its previous volume, and my mother, once more annoyed, started the conversation over again.
"How long did you say you were staying?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow after breakfast, mother."
"Oh, yes, I remember now. Can't you stay a little longer?"
"No, mother, I need to get to Trestlebridge before the New Year."
She paused a moment in confusion before continuing, "What in the world are you doing in Trestlebridge?"
I sighed again, as I customarily did before every time I had to explain things to her. "I'm not a woodworker anymore, mother. I'm a hunter now."
She nodded for a moment, but then a sudden realization came to her, and she looked at me with wide eyes. "What? What did I tell you about becoming a hunter?"
"You mean that your friend's second cousin accidentally shot himself in the foot and then was eaten by wolves when he couldn't run away? I've heard the story, mother, and frankly I don't believe a word of it."
"And why ever not?"
"Your friend is a proven liar. And hunting isn't dangerous! Maybe for fools like that fictional second cousin, but not for people like me. You're being irrational, I can handle myself out there."
She shook her head for a long time, thinking of words to say. Finally she settled with, "You're going to get yourself killed out there, boy."
I closed my book, stood, and walked out of the room, muttering something along the lines of "At least if I'm killed out there I'll be killed somewhere I want to be."
I went to bed, and when I woke up early the next morning, I didn't wait for breakfast. She probably wouldn't remember that I said I would leave after breakfast anyway. I said my goodbyes to Ellie (the only other one up at that time) and went on my way as the sun was just rising in the east. I had to reach Trestlebridge by foot before the New Year, and it was a good thing I set out early, because snow that year made the travel somewhat slower.
But, of course, that ended up being the last time I spoke with my mother. I had just arrived back in Bree when I got the news, and immediately I went to Combe to grieve with Ellie and my dad. It was sad, of course, but I take a little comfort in the fact that she still didn't know that I was a hunter when she died, so she couldn't have been disappointed in me.
