“Get in.”
There he was.
Her eye twitched.
“You are lucky I had nothing else to be doing,” She said stiffly. “I am not eager to risk my stature for you”
A silence.
Handing over a well-concealed package from her bodice to the shrunken man, Charlotte sighs, and places a ginger hand to the bare concrete.
She recoils. “Fixing your filthy walls was a priority, wasn’t it not?”
“You know my priority.” He says.
Charlotte musters a moment of tenderness and approaches the man like one approaches a stray cat. An angry and irrational thing, but just pitiful enough to sympathise with.
She beckons at him. “Come home to us.”
“Never! You know my answer, you brainwashed pig!”
Reeling back, tripping on her fine satin skirts, her face turns over. They are both standing now.
“You are the one fallen prey to brainwashing-”
“Thick! Stupid girl, don’t you understand?” He steps closer, light travelling across his unkempt appearance. His finery is worn and damaged. A true deviant.
Charlotte grabs for the rotted door and wrenches it open.
“Do not expect me back.”
“That was never a coincidence, Charlotte. You truly believe his innocence?”
She snaps her head around to face her brother one last time.
“Our father is innocent! You are a deranged fool,” She snarls. “He means nothing to you?”
Howard looks murderous.
“Our sister did. She is dead. And I know what he did.”
Charlotte marches out of Howard’s sight. My father is innocent, she thinks, Always.