Page 32 of Time for You
“You’re worried you’re stuck here forever.”
“Yes,” he said, and it was as if the word had been wrenched from him against his will.
Her heart softened a little more. “Let’s take a break, then. I’ll go put our books back, and then we can take a walk.”
He nodded, and when she came back outside, she found him leaning up against the wall of the library, face to the sun, eyes shut.
“Henry? Are you okay?”
He chuckled, eyes still closed. “No, I’m not all right. But thank you for asking nevertheless.”
He fell into step beside her as she started walking, not asking where they were going. Daphne started steering them toward the river, which was just a few blocks ahead. She called on her Doctorsona, even though she had precious little time to spend at patients’ bedsides. “Can you tell me about your family? Would that help?” she asked.
“Perhaps.”
Perhapswas not ano, so she kept going. “What are they like?”
He kept his eyes on the sidewalk. “It’s just my mother and my sisters,” he said. “Like I told you the first day, my father passed when I was young. Influenza. Is that—do you have that, still? Or is it like smallpox?”
“We still have it, but we have inoculations against it. They’re not perfect, but that and some medicines make it much, much easier to beat.”
A slight pause. “You are fortunate, then.”
“We are,” she agreed.
“My father owned an import firm, and after he passed, my uncle ran it. It was quite successful under my father’s leadership, and my uncle was a capable enough caretaker, so we were fortunate. I was born in a small house just outside Edinburgh, but just before Father died and shortly after Anne was born, we moved into a much grander home in the city itself. I took over MacDonald’s Imports once I was old enough, and at the very least I haven’t squandered Father’s hard work.”
“Do you like it?”
“The company is my responsibility,” he said, both answering and not answering the question at the same time.
“What about your mom? And sisters?”
Henry sent her a weak smile that hurt to look at. “Maggie is two years younger than me, and Anne was born when I was ten.”
“Are they married?”
“No.”
“I swear I’m not making fun—I just don’t know the answer—but didn’t people back then get married at like, sixteen? Or at least girls?”
“As if,” he said, with another faint smile. “Did I use it correctly?”
“Mostly,” she confirmed.
“Most ladies of their age are married, yes, although generally not by sixteen. I understand you and your friends are not unusual in your time in being unmarried at your age, but women in my time do marry younger. Some nobility might have their daughters marry that young, but we’re not aristocrats.”
“You’re not wealthy? I thought you just said you were.”
“We are, or were, I guess. But I mean it in the social-standing sense. My father was a commoner; therefore we are commoners, unless Anne were to marry someone of noble rank.”
“Why not Maggie? Or you?”
“I am not someone the aristocracy deems suitable,” he said glumly. There was a story there, she could tell, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to share it.
“And Maggie? Is she also ‘unsuitable’?”
“Maggie has informed me she will not marry until women are allowed to own property in their own right, separate from their husbands.” He stole a look at her. “I know you believe me to be an unbearable boor, but I would never force my sisters to do something they didn’t want to do.”
