“I hope this doesn’t strike you as odd, Matthew,” Jamesina said. “But I have to ask, how exactly are you related to Kirk? You sound so different from him.”
“I have to agree, I expected your voice to get deeper in twenty years, but I didn’t expect it to become so British,” Kirk said.
“I went to England for Seminary,” Matthew replied. “And my relations there stated immediately upon my arrival that I didn’t sound as American as they had expected, and then when I came home there were people considering me pretentious and arrogant by putting on an accent when I was speaking just as normally as I’d spoken before I left. My only guess is that the years in England affected my voice without my realising it.”
“I wonder how that happened,” Kirk said.
“I do as well,” Matthew replied. “But neither of us are doctors, and it might even be that doctors wouldn’t even know how that sort of thing happens.”
Kirk nodded. “To answer your question, though, Ina, his mother was my Aunt Thaddea, Mother’s younger sister. His father is an English Methodist pastor.”
Matthew nodded.
“Oh,” Jamesina said. “That makes sense. But I will definitely say that I’ve never met two more different-sounding cousins.”
“People have told me that I don’t even sound much like my sisters since I’ve come back from England,” Matthew said.
“Oh my,” Jamesina said. “Do you not have any brothers?”
“Not living, no,” Matthew replied.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jamesina said.
“It’s been… fourteen years since I last had a brother,” Matthew said, pausing to do the math. “Outside of brothers-in-law of course.”
“So they all died young then?” Jamesina asked.
“The majority, yes,” Matthew replied. “The one who lived the longest died at eighteen. He’d actually been sent to England for Seminary and ended up taking ill and dying there before he could complete his first year’s studies.”
“Oh dear,” Jamesina said.
“I mayn’t know all of God’s reasoning for his death, but I at least know enough to be confident that there was good in it,” Matthew said.
“How so?” Kirk asked.
“I wouldn’t have become a pastor otherwise,” Matthew replied. “And if I wouldn’t have become a pastor I wouldn’t have… become a father.”
“What would you have done instead?” Jamesina asked.
“I don’t know,” Matthew replied. “I hadn’t decided what I was going to do before I met Reverend Burnham, but I wasn’t interested in becoming a pastor like Father meant me to, which makes sense, considering I wasn’t exactly a Christian then, notwithstanding my upbringing.”
“I’m not as surprised by that as I feel like I should be,” Kirk said.
“What do you mean?” Matthew asked.
“I think it’s because I’ve heard your father preach,” Kirk said. “He’s the only man whose sermons have given me nightmares.”
Matthew nodded.
Pronunciation:
Jamesina: jaymzeenah
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