Long Goodbyes by Scott Hunter

Author:Scott Hunter
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Myrtle Villa Publishing
Published: 2015-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

‘Jack will be perfectly safe in my care,’ Grace said. ‘Should you feel obliged to tarry a further week as a favour to Mrs Benjamin then please do so. Who am I to stand in your way?’

Who indeed, I thought. But something inside me rebelled at the idea of abandoning my Jack to the ministrations of his elder sister. Only for a week, I said to myself. For Orla. After all she has done for us…

‘Very well,’ I said as I cleared the breakfast table. Grace, I noticed, had consumed her frugal meal with her usual fastidiousness; the toast had left barely a crumb on her side plate.

I said, ‘It is kind of you to assume responsibility for the journey.’

‘He has always been my responsibility,’ she retorted. ‘I am his sister, after all.’

As if that gave her sole rights. But I said nothing more.

I busied myself at the washtub. Jack must have a clean shirt for travelling. Again I felt the twinge in my stomach, stopped what I was doing.

‘What is the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ I told her. ‘A little indigestion.’

‘Food is to be savoured, not gulped as would a commoner.’

As I soaked Jack’s shirt in warm water I relished the prospect of some days apart from this dry, critical woman. Jack, I reasoned, would hardly notice his sister’s manner in his present state. Indeed, he would never have put up with it were he of sound mind.

Just a short while, that’s all, my love, I told Jack later. Just a little time apart.

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