Resolution: Day 10

Word Count: 60,166

Summary of Events:

Shelton, Georgiana, and all of their friends talked together, with Pearl asking several questions about the wedding, only to be shocked by the answers — particularly when she learned there was to be no dance. Georgiana thought some about what she'd like for a wedding dress before getting an idea of what Shelton could do while trying to be easy on his head; but when she called to tell him his mother answered the phone and hung up on her. Shelton was reading, as it didn't involve any movement aside from his eyes and hands, when his youngest sister brought him tea, intent to discuss Georgiana; unfortunately, she not only didn't get why he liked Georgiana, but why he continued to butt heads with their parents . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

“You get an inheritance,” Loretta said.

“Money can’t listen to you,” Shelton said. “Money doesn’t care about your opinion.”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic Shelton,” Loretta said.

“You don’t understand,” Shelton said. “All you have to do is marry a handsome boy, give him a son, and look pretty by his side. I have to uphold a family reputation and follow in the occupational practise and marry a decent girl who will give me a son and look pretty by my side, and then I have to provide for her and the children and be able to support Mother and Father when they’re old.”

“I don’t really think what you have to do is all that much harder than what I have to do,” Loretta said. “You’re overdramatising it.”

“It’s hard to put into words,” Shelton complained. “But there’s a lot more expectation riding on me than on you. I have to make sure that the Keith name is well-represented and all sorts of things, and even just the way Mother and Father talk suggests that there’s so much more that I have to do, but yet do they tell me what it is? No.”

“Then maybe you’re reading too far into what they’re saying,” Loretta suggested, idly looking at the back of her hand.

Shelton sighed heavily. “They want me to get married, I picked a girl who loves me and is willing to have children. Are they happy? No. Why? She’s too poor. What does that matter? They won’t tell me. Isn’t her willingness to have children more important? No. Why not? Again, they will not tell me.”

Loretta sipped her tea and stared at the wall. Shelton got the distinct sense she wasn’t really listening to him at all.

“And Father served in the Army in the Great War,” Shelton said. “I’m supposed to follow in his footsteps. Sure I can’t reenact the Great War specifically, and I was too young for the last war, but I want to be in the military for at least a few years. Are they happy with that? No. Why? I don’t know. I’m supposed to become a lawyer and a judge. Apparently it’s supposed to happen right now. Why? I don’t know.”

“Because if you become a lawyer and a judge first you won’t die in battle,” Loretta said. “After all, they’ve already lost one son to an enemy’s gun.”

“There’s not even a war going on,” Shelton protested.

“There could be soon, what with the way the papers are going on about Korea,” Loretta said.

“Korea’s a lot smaller than Europe,” Shelton said. “And the more battle-ready, battle-experienced men who are in the Army would be the ones who would go first anyways. Who says I’ll even get there before the war is over?”

“The last two times wars were expected to be quick they dragged on for years,” Loretta said. “Why do people keep thinking so foolishly?”

Shelton sighed. “It’s a perennial optimism.”