Talking Around

“Henry, do you want to show auntie your drawing? Let’s see. Ohhh, wow. That sword looks dangerous. It’s a good drawing.”

“Thang you.”

“Looks good, Henry!”

“Thang you.”

“You can keep drawing more if you want.”

“Mm. Anyways. What were we talking about?”

“Well. We were talking about Lee and his... wife.”

“Right. Right, we were.”

“Is he going to be alright?”

“Probably. I think he’s aware it was going to happen. He tends to persevere on things. I think he’ll be in a difficult mood, kind of... cranky... for a while. But I think he’ll get through it.”

“I hope so.”

“I hope so too.”

“Did you ever know anyone else with a relationship like that?”

“Not... as such. I remember hearing one rumor of someone at school who got caught? I don’t even know if that’s true. Maybe, but maybe it was someone just making up a rumor that sounded embarrassing, you know? Who was that, that they said... I remember it was someone and, allegedly there was a dog involved, yeah, and then I think any time there was any animal, oh holy moly I just remembered, ha, any time in a book there was a horse or a goat or anything, we would write in the book, little, well, messages, to the animal, as... oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue, I can almost see it right there, we would sign his name on these.”

“Ugh.”

“I know, hey, we were kids, you know?”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I’m not saying I still go to libraries and write this stuff in the books.”

“Well I would hope not.”

“Looking back, I don’t know if he was really... like we said he was. Maybe there was something to it. Probably got out of hand, the rumors, you know, exaggerated from whatever the truth of the matter might have been, if there was even anything. Hm. But no, besides that, I mean, no, I can’t even think of anyone who was rumored to be like Lee and his wife.”

“No, it was a surprise to me, when Josephine told me about that. I... it made sense, to tell you the truth, I was just surprised, because I had never heard of anyone... more than just for...”

“Yeah. No, it’s, I think that is a part of it, I don’t want to know, you know, but it’s more than that too, definitely.”

“Oh I know. I can see that.”

“It made sense to me too.”

“They’ve been very sweet together.”

“Yeah.”

“Well I hope he’ll be alright.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do too.”

“What else has been going on? Oh, did you hear about Josephine and Ty looking into getting an apartment in...”