North Road {HS}

12. Kitty

The piano in my stomach wouldn't stop playing and I was mortified of the feeling. Because for some reason all of the songs weren't sad ones. They were light, filled with words I didn't know and feelings I haven't felt.

I had staid home with the children while Marjorie went with Adelaide and yet I still felt okay. I sat at the table with a book and a cup of tea soaking up my brief moment of respite. Besides those who had gone out to the dance, the house was finally asleep.

I heard a creaking in the mudroom and pulled my robe tighter around myself to make sure I was decent before they entered.

"Didn't expect anyone to be up," he muttered as he seemed to examine me by candle light.

"Oh, well I take what I can," I sighed, "even if it means staying up a few moments past midnight. Tea?"

He nodded and shrugged off his coat as I busied myself with the kettle.

"I was staying up to hear the gossip from Adelaide if I'm honest," I mumbled feeling a heat in my cheeks.

Harry laughed a loud laugh. One full of candlelight and mirth, "You girls and your gossip."

I could feel myself mirroring his smile on my own face as I rejoined him. We sat in the silence of the dimly lit kitchen and I felt the melody in the piano turn warm and rich as he watched me.

"You didn't come to the dance and I can't tell if I'm disappointed or enamored by your selflessness," he said quietly.

The melody was growing. Like one of Debussy's pieces that Mrs. Knapp hated. The one about moonlight seemed fitting. Full of pleasure full of a mounting fear of the darkness. Clair de Lune.

I nodded and answered quietly, "It's a shame really. For you probably danced with the likes of Ingrid Beecham and I didn't get to see that skill you boasted of."

Once again Harry erupted in laughter. The perfect accompaniment to the strange beautiful song growing within me. For it was a laugh so foreign to Harry.

"What?" I asked laughing alongside him.

"You women and your disgust for Ingrid Beecham. It's quite awful," he answered with a grin on his face that looked far from upset.

"You and your lumping all women together," I quipped back teasing, "We're not all as silly and pretty as we come across."

He just stared at me still with that grin on his face.

"All except Ingrid maybe," I added.

"No," he laughed, "I don't think that about you lot."

"I've read about the marches in England and I wish I could have been there," I sighed.

"My sister was there," he responded before his grin grew a little straighter as if he hadn't thought about what he had said.

"I didn't know you had a sister."

He sounded tired when he spoke again, "My parents nearly lost it when she left home. At least that's what she wrote me.

When the war began she left to train as a nurse in the city. Later she left nursing and began to protest the war. Marching for the vote only seemed natural for her."

"She seems like quite something," I laughed.

"Quite something is one way to put her," he chuckled but the tiredness was still there.

"What is her name?"

"Margaret," he answered, "but I'd rather not talk about her."

"Oh okay," I said pulling my robe tighter and examining the bottom of my tea cup.

"Well if you don't want to talk I suppose I ought to go to bed. Apparently Adelaide doesn't have the wherewithal to be home at a decent hour this evening," I said standing and placing my cups in the sink. I remembered how the song about moonlight turned frustrated, some might even say angry after a few pages. It had been my favorite part to play until now. When Harry's eyes had reminded me how beautiful the beginning was.

He stayed at his spot at the kitchen table still dressed in his nicest slacks with his curls sprung free from being tamed all day and falling over his eyes. I know he had been watching me as I tidied what I had pulled out for our tea. But now, as I turned to leave, I saw he had his face buried in his hand with his elbows propped on the table.

"Goodnight Harry," I whispered before turning away suddenly feeling as tired as he had looked when he spoke.
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Here you go lovelies.
Um, make sure to read the last chapter if you haven't. It's been up for a week but not too many people have seen.
Also dying because of all the Polaroid pictures of Harry from his merch that are blowing up the internet. 😍😍