Kitty shrugged seeming unbothered by the conversation. "I think it's all the same God, so as long as our child is good, it don't matter what way they worship." She hugged Uriel a bit. "Whatever makes ya happier."

She eyed Zechariah and shook her head. "That ain't that different from ours, cept it's weekly. And sure, sometimes they are more.. passionate about it. But that depends on the priest and church. Father Richards is a very nice man who wouldn't guilt anyone."

She arched a brow and looked to Uriel. "What's gentile?"

"A gentile is someone who is not a Jew," he said quietly. "I... want to keep my faith the way it is. I may be a putz but I try to stay true to being Jewish... It's what I know..." He looked truly torn. He wanted very much to stay a Jew but he also wanted to expedite the process as well. "But I also want to marry you yesterday so our child has a name."

He looked to his brother, "I want to do right by my own flesh and blood even if it means I alienate the rest of you. I won't apologize for falling in love and making a baby... neither was planned. But if we can do this with as little stress to be had as possible, that would be ideal. I know it would not be without hardship."

“We do not engage in a weekly shakedown,” he deadpanned.

Judging by the Wards, Christians knew nothing of planning nor budgeting.

Neither did two out of four brothers, but that did not count.

“Do you think you are the first Jewish man to charm a goy?” he said drily. “Foter’s side assimilated enough to gain office, and Penina married a Humphries.” He crinkled his nose, sighed, then took a sip of his drink before setting it down again. “Whatever you... both, decide, you should write Muter. Bubbe will not take it well, but... that is beyond our power now.”

It always had been. Zechariah never seemed to stop chasing their Orthodox maternal grandmother’s approval, no matter how much she had rejected her own daughter and grandchildren. Their father had been less stringent about traditional values, and their mother seemed to see-saw between vehement agreement and shame for disappointing her mother, and quietly charmed warmth when their father got her jewelry.

Yiddish:

Goy = Gentile/non-Jewish person
Foter = Father
Muter = Mother
Bubbe = Grandma

Kitty shrugged looking completely unbothered by how he tried to pick at her religious choice rather than her own character. "Sounds ta me like maybe they just aren't as good with money. Maybe if people from both churches got together they could help each other out with their ...'It took her a second to come up with the right word. "Inefficiencies."

There was a small crack in her expression as he spoke to Uriel, still clearly trying to get him to have second thoughts about her. Speaking about family members , she guessed,and her arm tightened slightly around him. She stared at Zechariah and spoke quieter because there was something that bothered her.

"I am getting rather fed up the way ya keep speaking ta me as if I weren't much of a person. To ya I'm just a mistake your brother made. Ya don't know my good side or if I even have one and I can tell ya don't care much. While I like ta think you are trying ta help your brother in some way, and maybe your future niece or nephew.. I also wished you didn't treat me like a dog that learned ta speak just cause I'm a..' It took her a second to speak the word without cracking. "A gentile... I don't think bein a catholic made me any more or less a good person. Just as I think, no matter what you believed you'd still be an ass." She perhaps shouldn't have said that but it was true.

He was caught between demands from his brother and his wife to be. "I wrote to mother yesterday," he said, "You're the only one I have told in person so far. You should feel special." He wasn't jesting, though there was a sardonic edge to his voice that should let Zech know there was no small amount of irritation involved. "Whatever we choose, that baby will have my name and that is the right thing, and one of two things that matter the most to me. I love Katherine." There, he thought, stick that into a pipe and smoke it!

Speaking of pipe, he decided he was going to be an ass to Zech and walk away so Kittie could say whatever it is she felt like saying. He shot her a secretive grin on his way to the terrace, gesturing ever so slightly with his head to let her rip.

There was a frustrated raise of his brows at the dubious honor.

“She is showing!” he snapped back at Uriel. “You have had more than ample time to do this correctly, Uriel.”

As crisp as the words were, there was a tightness to his face that suggested more than just anger. The tension eased only slightly at the mention of the child’s surname, though there was a flinch at the ‘two things that mattered’ to Uriel.

Though the pinch of his eyes suggested he had much to say about her first remark, instead he settled back into his seat as though it were not worth the effort.

All that relief evaporated when his putz of a brother took his departure and left his mistress behind! His jaw clenched and his face flushed, but he took a presumably unaffected sip of his drink.

“Katherine,” he repeated, clipped. “You have been with this … much, much younger man, for how long now? With his child. How many other children have you had, Katherine?”

Kitty watched in surprise as Uriel left her to do with his brother as she would. After he disappeared, she turned her head to face the older brother and smiled. As her body relaxed against the sofa comfortably, she folded her hands neatly on her lap.

"Ya make it sound like I pulled a boy from a schoolyard. He was very eager ta be with me, and we haven't been together long. It was quite tornado of passion, and we've only grown more.. tender, since then. Especially since he'd been goin back ta university till now. What with his tryin ta prepare ta teach kids." She then began to laugh, "It may surprise ya but I've had none. Though I honestly thought I couldn't, considering."

She ran her fingers delicately over her belly, not because she wanted to. She didn't care much, but she was certain it would disturb him. Her very presence got on his bad side, she believed.

"How's about ya answer me now?" She leaned forward slightly, as much as the new mass would allow, and folded her arms across her knees to watch him. "Ya haven't congradulated yer brother on his change in what he wants ta do, or him finding love and havin a family. That means.. I think.. that ya don't like his choices or ya believe they are going to go badly for him? What about that upsets ya more? That he'll be hurt, make ya look bad, or come to ya fer help?" The woman chuckled and leaned back again to drape one leg over the other. "Yer not tha first high class guy that I've met that hated me on sight, you know."

His anger was such that he wanted very much to smash his fist into his brother’s face. He turned before reaching the terrace and belted out, “And what is the right thing, brother? It takes time to marry someone of a different faith, and I am already set to do that! Is what you say right for Katherine and me, or is it what is right for you?!” There were actual damned tears in his eyes. One thing Uriel never did in front of his siblings was cry, he was truly angry and unhappy with Zech’s judgment.

Before his brother could answer though, he was outside and shoving the mouthpiece of the pipe into his maw. He lit it and inhaled.

While Uriel might have eavesdropped as a child, for some reason Zechariah had figured him grown out of it. Even though Zechariah still occasionally did the same.

With an exasperated arch of the brows, he took another sip of his drink.

“Ah, you know so much about me,” he dryly countered. “You have me at a disadvantage here. Tell me about these other ‘high class’ men you are … acquainted, with.”

Kitty lowered her brow and wagged a finger. "Yer terrible to play with if you can't follow through. Not answerin a single question. Besides, yer imagination's off. I didn't have that sort of relationship with them. Even fancy folk like ta see an excitin show. And they can afford ta talk to the star and maybe get a fun little shootin or ridin lesson from one of the best. Besides, that was in my past. I came ta England for many reasons, mostly I was changin' my life. I hadn't touched a man since me and him got serious and I certainly ain't been hiding what kinda person I was. But I suppose you don't believe that, do ya? Your brother actually loves you and wants ta make the family love him back and be happy for him. Just now, he's trying ta be happy too. It ain't me that's gonna hurt Uriel, ya know."

She folded her arms and managed to not glare daggers at him.