“They’re both honors, am I right?”I inquired.
“Indeed.”He nodded.“Grand ones.”
“What do you want to do?”I queried.
“I have not been stuck in a secluded cottage in theFleuridiancountryside for twenty years.So rather, I’dprefer to know whatyouwant to do.”
Well…
Hell.
I, too, had not been stuck in a secluded cottage in theFleuridiancountryside.
In fact, just two months ago, Mom, Keith, my friend Hollyand I had rented a boat and sped and tubed and sunned and swam while spending ahappy day on Lake Pleasant.
“It’ll be your work,” I punted.
“It’ll be your life,” he rejoined.
“Ourlife,” I corrected.
And that was when it happened.
It started with Loren saying this:
“Honestly,Satrine, I don’t carewhat I bloody do.None of that has any real meaning.Politics have been playedmillennia before us and will be played for millennia after, without the peopleseeing any real change.So it doesn’t matter.We could start inWodelland make our way home.Hell, we could go to TheMystics and around the globe.Whatever you wish.But he’ll want an answer whenhe makes Newton.”
“At the joyous occasion of your return,” I startedcautiously, “I hesitate to get into anything heavy, honey.But that’s a ratherpessimistic viewpoint and I think maybe we should discuss why you have it.”
“Can you refute it?”he challenged.
“My father’s assets are currently frozen from his accessbecause the new king gives a shit about right and wrong.”
He shut up.
I gave him another example.
“I want to learn to drive that phaeton Father has, andyou’re going to teach me because I know in my heart thatyouknowfemales can drive carriages, even if the men before you felt differently.”
“Satrine—”
“Can we have time together, just you and me, please?”
He glanced around the study, making his point.
“Mom will want to spend time with you now that you’re back.You’re marrying her daughter.We need to get to know each other.And she needsto get to know you.Maxine needs to get used to you.And I don’t know whyMaitland is here, but I didn’t even say hello.Now is not the time for me toprovide you with ample proof that, in the long run, the world is good.”
“Your father was a narcissist and a degenerate.Your wholelife, you suffered for those personality flaws.And you sit before me and tellme the world is good?”
“I had my mom,” I whispered.
“Six years into your life,” he shot back.“And yes, let’sget together, just you and I, and you can share about those years where youwere banished, as a baby, and onward, for more than half a decade, from yourmother’s breast.You’ve spoken not a word about that time, and I sense I knowexactly why you haven’t.”
He’d sense wrong since that would be difficult to discuss,since I wasn’t banished.
Which was probably why I flinched.
He didn’t miss it and bit off, “Precisely.”Then he drew ina very deep breath and stated, far more gently, “That was reprehensible of me,darling.I should never have mentioned it.It is yours to share if you wish, ornot, if that is as you wish.”
