Maybe houses really were overrated.  Mable couldn't say she really stayed in the house much on the farm, and even now she wasn't really living in a house.  She was staying in a hotel.  The only houses she had seen were her friends, and most of them were very nice, but the nice ones were never hers.  Maybe Edward had the right idea, staying on a ship and making that his home.

Mable's head tilted, her gaze settling on Edward's feet as she genuinely considered her answer.

It was hard for her to be sad, sometimes.  Once upon a time, she felt sad so much all the time that she had to laugh and smile to convince herself that she wasn't, and sometimes she was so sure she used up all of her sad too soon.  And her father wasn't the type of person you were sad about missing, but that wasn't Edward's question.  His question was, if she was sad he had died.

When her dad died, she didn't know.  All she knew was that her brother was taking her on a trip, and they were going to England.  She didn't know he was gone until they were already on the damn boat.

When her dad died, so had her brother, and she didn't even know she'd lost what was left of her family until months after the fact.

"Yeah," she said finally, voice wavering.  "But not because I miss him.  He really was awful.  He was the worst.  But he was still my dad, and at least when I had my dad I had my brother too.  Now I just - I'm alone."

Mable shrugged, and the tears started to fall.  She wiped them away quickly, embarrassed to be crying in front of her friend, but she couldn't help it when she thought to much about this.  At least she hadn't used up all her sad before she hit double digits in age, though.