Rose tried to stop crying and gently pushed Elijah away. She was a young woman of fifteen now. Not a child anymore. "I'm sorry..." She wiped her eyes. "Of course I didn't mean what I said." Well, some part of her didn't mean it. Some part of her hoped father would toss him overboard and be done with it this time.
Elijah sighed and held his hands to his side's. "No need to apologize. You have a right to your feelings. " He sighed heavily. "Then why say it? He is having his own internal battles. To feel his family wants him gone won't help.."
"He keep doing it." Rose complained. "He says he'll stay out of trouble and behave. He promises me. And then he once again comes home in the middle of the night, or talks back to father, or gets into fights with people. And everyone around him suffers."
Elijah sighed. "I know. Sometimes people do things and it is a spiral down until something breaks the cycle. Do you think the men who spend all their time in the pubs drinking started that way?"
"I'm afraid that's what he'll end up like..." Rose said quietly. Her grandfather had been like that. Rose had never experienced it, because he had drowned in the Esk on a drunk night when father was a boy. From what she had heard, the family had been better off for it. She did not want to think her beloved brother could be the same.
