They know the story as well as their own:

When he’s close, when he wants us to know his love, William’s white feathers appear.

A tale told to a grieving mother, wanting to hold on to any piece of her baby

and passed onto the  brother and sister, in the hope that they may know him a little.

A story.

That’s all it probably is,

not a truth

not fact

but in the magic of the season,

in the pure innocence of childhood,

today,

when they came to me with dozens of the pure, white, downy beauties

that they had found scattered in the yard,

today

I just had to believe.