03-08-2022, 01:42 PM
There was a haughty pride when she looked at Zechariah’s watch the way he wished his older siblings would look at him. Not even her kvetching about the post could take that away!
“I am very popular here,” he announced, firmly.
Not in a ‘had friends’ way, and not in a here here way, either. Mere technicalities. Besides, a letter from a sister was not what summoned that fancy letter opener to his hand like a returning boomerang.
Did it intimidate Zechariah, sometimes, that his sister stood more like a man in heels than he did in a suit and tie? In conversational comparison, perhaps. But, she was older. She had always been more. Questioning it was to question why the sun set and the stars shone: fun, but ultimately pointless.
His head tilted as he watched her get straight to business. No more speeches? Not a blasted out song to these many, many strangers who were not yet looking at her? He hefted the rest of her suitcases, this time with only an uncomfortable grunt.
Something was up with Ruth. Had she finally had her heart broken? Did she break the wrong windows with the power of her voice?
And then, with a mere opening of her mouth, all Zechariah’s sympathy was swept away in the wind of her words once more.
“Who says I ever behave the way I might be expected to?” Zechariah answered peevishly.
One of the maids who changed his teenaged bed sheets, for one. The months-long crying spell preceded by a dramatic friendship dissolution after an older boy started courting a girl, for another. Not to mention the awful, sullen spell that had come and never quite lifted after a brief mention of some sodomite murderer hanged a few years back.
“There is a woman in my life!” he huffed, partly out of frustration but truly mostly out of the weight of her few suitcases. “She is-” he handed off the suitcases to the elderly carriage driver eagerly, “-beautiful, and comes with a hefty dowry!”
Brothel. She came with a brothel, not that he was going to say that out loud.
“You are too kind,” Zechariah deadpanned with a roll of his eyes before getting in beside her and closing the carriage door. “So, who managed to wrestle you into a skirt?”
“I am very popular here,” he announced, firmly.
Not in a ‘had friends’ way, and not in a here here way, either. Mere technicalities. Besides, a letter from a sister was not what summoned that fancy letter opener to his hand like a returning boomerang.
Did it intimidate Zechariah, sometimes, that his sister stood more like a man in heels than he did in a suit and tie? In conversational comparison, perhaps. But, she was older. She had always been more. Questioning it was to question why the sun set and the stars shone: fun, but ultimately pointless.
His head tilted as he watched her get straight to business. No more speeches? Not a blasted out song to these many, many strangers who were not yet looking at her? He hefted the rest of her suitcases, this time with only an uncomfortable grunt.
Something was up with Ruth. Had she finally had her heart broken? Did she break the wrong windows with the power of her voice?
And then, with a mere opening of her mouth, all Zechariah’s sympathy was swept away in the wind of her words once more.
“Who says I ever behave the way I might be expected to?” Zechariah answered peevishly.
One of the maids who changed his teenaged bed sheets, for one. The months-long crying spell preceded by a dramatic friendship dissolution after an older boy started courting a girl, for another. Not to mention the awful, sullen spell that had come and never quite lifted after a brief mention of some sodomite murderer hanged a few years back.
“There is a woman in my life!” he huffed, partly out of frustration but truly mostly out of the weight of her few suitcases. “She is-” he handed off the suitcases to the elderly carriage driver eagerly, “-beautiful, and comes with a hefty dowry!”
Brothel. She came with a brothel, not that he was going to say that out loud.
“You are too kind,” Zechariah deadpanned with a roll of his eyes before getting in beside her and closing the carriage door. “So, who managed to wrestle you into a skirt?”
