Morning all. I hope everyone had a good night and is ready to face the day. My brains are still half asleep so I am hoping that the fifteen minutes of writing will wake them up a bit. Let’s see if it works. Ready those timers and let’s go.
well I am slightly more awake. Still, the coffee will soon help. I think this is an interesting set up. I imagine everyone has been called in for some sort of announcement that will shake evertyone out of their comfortable or even uncomfortable ruts. Not sure what that will be yet, but I like the calm before the storm feel of this. Of course I like making the storm even more so maybe I’ll work on that later.
Tuesday, August 30th: There was still a lot of tension.
There was still a lot of tension. Apologies had been made and gifts of regret offered and accepted. Yet the tensions remained. Erin was wearing the offered earrings now. They sparkled in her ears, the diamonds winking like blue fire in the light from the chandelier and the rubies paired with them glaring like fire filled eyes.
‘Harold should have gone with sapphires instead of rubies,’ Michael thought. ‘Less angry looking.’
Across the table Harold was oblivious to the angry sparks his wife’s earlobes were spitting and was happily enjoying his dinner, secure in the fact that he had once again made up for his mistakes. In Harold’s mind any trouble went away with a suitably high priced gift.
As Michael carefully scooped up a bit of mashed potato, making certain his fork didn’t scrape across the china and earn himself some recriminations, he wondered if Erin knew of the closet. In Harold’s study thee was a closet filled with pre wrapped boxes, some earrings, some necklaces. They were pre purchased, pre wrapped and separated out by cost on each shelf.
Harold always wanted to make certain the cost of the gift matched the size of the apology he planned to make. He was also worried that he would leave price tags on things and merely labeled the shelves instead.
‘Even if she knows I doubt she realizes both the closet and many of the gifts purchase predate her marriage to Harold.’ Michael knew that most of his brother’s apology gifts were purchased for Francine, and were merely kept for Erin’s tenure.
Michael tried not to sigh. He understood why business was not conducted at the table but he resented having to sit through the family dinner when he had been summoned on the pretext of dinner. When he was invited to dinner for familial reasons he always came. There was no need to trick him into attending a family event under the guise of a business event. He had no desire to mingle the two any more than could be helped. He knew his father felt the same way which was why they needed to get through the family meal prior to discussing the actual business.
‘The problem is the drama,’ Michael thought. Thus far they’d managed his meal with only tension snapping through the air. If they made it to the end of the meal with nothing worse he would be surprised. That wasn’t their way. As Michael quietly consumed his meal, commenting politely to any question put to him and politely asking a few general questions, addressing most of his comments to Faith, who happily had been shocen to sit next to him.
Faith hated the drama even more than he did and he could see her fingers gripping her fork hard enough that white and red speckles danced on her fingers from the pressure. Michael wondered if the pressure would be the death of the fork. Faith married into the family. She was married to John for eight years and happily let him take the weight of the drama. Then John died. Michael thought she would leave or do something, but she still came when she was called to the family for various events. He wondered how long that would last. John had been gone six years now. Surely there was a limit placed on how much she had to endure his family after he was gone.
Ten til Midnight 