Imen scratch and strike me, what was I saying?
Ah, yes. I'm condescending to Aimée, telling her her father might have been gently pulling her leg, for all the best imaginable reasons, with the bit about the Dandelion Knight. And Aimée looks at me, obviously close to boiling over, and says, in much the tone I used with Daniel Utterquick just now:
"You think you know an awful lot about my father, Pel, because you know his finances. And now you've read his letters. But I've read his letters too, now, and I've got something you'll never have: I spent practically my whole life living with Gauthier Leblanc's wife. So when I tell you, as I'm telling you, that my father was not given to flights of fancy, it comes from a well of knowledge you don't have any right to question."
Well, this was fair, and furthermore it was a pronouncement from my boss, which on its own should have telegraphed, to any right-thinking person, the correct response. But recall, now, what happened with my last boss. Or, for that matter, anything that you who know me know about me.
So what do I say? I say, "For a man of no fancy, he's a tolerable enough poet, it would seem."
And that was the end of conversation for the evening, as you can imagine.
YOU ARE READING
Dispatch from a Colored Room
Science FictionPel has a story to tell. There's the girl who grew up destitute, addicted, single mother to a son she can't protect; the father who left the family, then disappeared; the old family friend, angel and demon both; the Dandelion Knight. But why tell it...
