Dancing leaves: part two

Inspired by the painting by José Navarro Llorens

She looks for him every morning when she wakes, reaches out a hand expecting to find him there, his warm bulk curled around her protectively. Every morning, the knot in her throat tightens, and the sharp sting of memory pricks out the tears. It had been on a still-hot autumn day, chill in the early morning, when the dead leaf flames fluttered, that his life faded, snuffed out before the night. Now the leaves begin to turn again. She takes the child to the green mound where the tall trees sway, and they listen to the breeze whisper his name.