" The winter of love is a cellar of empty bins / In an orchard soft with rot." The soft with rot part sounded so familiar, but it took a few moments before she made the connection as to why. " He was mumbling that to me," she said. A clear image of Marcus, gaunt and pale in his dining room deathbed, lit up her brain. She hadn't thought of him like that in so long. " The last time I saw him." " He said it was you," Jackson said, suddenly looking at somber as she felt. " You were going to be those empty bins, once he died. And it was maybe the saddest thing I had ever heard. "