"I'll be both," Little John, John Little, promised his wife. "I am your John, I am their John, I am Pa." He turned the thought over, trying to remember something Much used to say, about a bad boy, and thumping the roof of a carriage? That wasn't it, no, and it wouldn't have been a carriage, it would have been a long time since Much had last made unintelligible jokes about carriages.
What the hell was that saying? He was going to be worse than Stutely once he got back, trying to understand what people were talking about.
What he meant was; he could fit all selves inside him. One, though, come tomorrow, would take precedence. "I'll be Pa most of all," he promised her, knowing the whole tangle of emotions she was dealing with when it came to letting her oldest leave. "They'll be okay, my love, they're canny kids with good hearts, and I'll be with them, at their backs every step of the way."