forgotten

[mute_pen]

It's past dark, but when you need the outhouse, you need the outhouse.

Isabel picks her way across the yard of her father's house in the moonlight, hoping to sneak back into bed without waking him.

Comments

[pythbox]

Nothing at all happens for at least an hour.

[mute_pen]

Her legs are bruised but not broken. Etty lets herself be a crumpled whimpering heap for fifteen minutes and then she drags herself to her feet by her good arm and steps more carefully to the door.

[growcrooked]

The main doors won't open; the nearest side door is far enough that by the time she finds it, Nona is not far behind.

[mute_pen]

Etty looks at Nona, and opens the door, and goes out into the orchard, and finds a tree to sit under and curl up and go on with her crying.

[growcrooked]

Nona follows her out and curls up next to her.

[mute_pen]

This might take a while.

[growcrooked]

That's okay. They have time.

[mute_pen]

Does Nona want to sit there for the next hour listening to Etty sobbing and pretty much ignoring her?

[growcrooked]

Sure.

[mute_pen]

Then after this hour she will be rewarded with dubious eye contact.

[growcrooked]

She doesn't really know what to do.

But, well, here she is.

[mute_pen]

"It'll be worse if I don't go next time," whispers Etty. "Won't it."

[growcrooked]

"Yeah, probably," says Nona.

[mute_pen]

"I don't know if I can go, even so."

[growcrooked]

"I know," says Nona.

[mute_pen]

"He was pretending such civility. I thought I could put him off. I couldn't."

[growcrooked]

"He does that."

[mute_pen]

"Does he really think on some level that I - that we - that -" She can't finish the sentence.

[growcrooked]

"I don't think he cares. About anything. He just wants us to play along, and if we don't, he makes us."

[mute_pen]

Etty wipes her eyes with her good hand.

[growcrooked]

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

[mute_pen]

Etty bows her head.

"I can't even write. Not left-handed in the dark."

[growcrooked]

"I'm sorry," she says again.

[mute_pen]

"Tell me what I need to do," Etty says in a low voice, "that you can promise and mean it - tell me who I need to be -"

[growcrooked]

"...I don't think I can do that," she says. "You're already yourself, and I love you, don't I? I just don't know how to make promises about it."