Alec

by William di Canzio

As they walked to the train from Kitty’s rooms, Maurice told Alec about their talk in the tea parlor. “She said she’s amazed to learn of you and me, but by no means upset, much less scandalized. ‘Why are you amazed?’ I asked her. ‘Because you always seemed such a conformist,’ she said.” Alec chuckled: “Not since I climbed in your window.” “She makes a good case that tending the wounded is like being wounded yourself, maybe worse, time and again, with no chance for healing, always another casualty. Good God, she’s witnessed so much misery! And suffered plenty of her own. Anyway, she says she welcomes love any way it manifests. ‘It’s the enemy of war,’ she says. So she’s glad for us.” “Now, that is amazing.” “Yes. When I hear her talk like that, I can understand how the baby came about.” On the train, Maurice and Alec each kept to his own thoughts. Alec reluctantly acknowledged to himself that he’d been afraid to meet Maurice’s sister, of how she might look down on him. But in the face of her hardship, he now renounced such emotion as unmanly, selfish, silly. Maurice stared out the window, elbow on the armrest, chin on fist. Alec spoke up when they were approaching Millthorpe: “Can you see a way forward?” Maurice shook his head. “I was just thinking about breaking this news to Mother and Ada and my aunt…” He shuddered.