May 15, 2020
Review, edit and update:
Focused on Emelina, this piece was, in general, an improved bit of writing. I shortened a couple of sentences and fixed one or two typos.
Comes the Dawn
Emelina really was a bit concerned about her sister, listening to her cry herself to sleep each night, something she had done as a child, tears never seen in the light of day. She had teased her sister unmercifully when they were growing up about being ‘a big baby’. Dez would inevitably get mad, throw something and run out of whatever room they were in. Their mom would call from whatever room she was in “You girls stop that fighting!” So they would ~ for a little while.
Emelina had been sitting in Digby’s wingback chair in his room, reading. The book she had chosen, Pandemic Policies for Charities, was interesting but incredibly dry. While she was active in the whirlwind of functions and dinners for fund raising, she could read these sorts of books in no time. Dry or not. But since getting over the shock of no servants, getting a middle of the night call from a police officer and, in truth, getting confined to ‘her room’, she felt a change come over her. She was sleeping better at night. During the day, she felt calm, despite the pandemic fear that hovered. She and Dez were enjoying each other’s company. The last day ~ or was it two days ~ time was all muddled up ~ Emmie felt an emptiness in their kitchen home. And with that emptiness, tension had built up between Emmie and Dez. Emmie would retreat to her room, nap or read. She felt rootless and lost again. She had heard Dez go out. The light patter of rain against glass drew her attention to the bay window and the book shelf beneath it. Books on husbandry, Best Practices for Butlers, Managing Your Employer and Their Family, historical novels……..Some book titles that Emelina recognized and had read were mostly the novels. Rain and books comforted Emelina. She leaned her head into the chair and fell asleep, only waking when she heard Dez come in the house. The slamming of the back door woke her up. After disentangling herself from the throw wrapping itself around her numb feet, she had called out to her. She was certain that it could only be Dez, but a tiny part of her wished it were her staff and Digby.
Digby, this kind man who had already been in her late husbands employment when they married. Who was he really? How was Martha? The rest of the staff ~ Cook, and Giles and….she couldn’t remember the names of all the others. Emelina was so busy with charity and community work that she paid little attention to all these people that took care of her every need. There would have been a day when she haughtily said “I pay them well, with good health benefits. They’ll be all right.” Today, she was feeling quite differently. For the first time she was truly concerned about their welfare.
Emmie walked out to the kitchen, her tea had grown cold while she slept. “Dez. Now that you’ve told me your jailbird story, I have a sort of story of my own. I’ll need your help to really sort it all out. You’ve often wondered who Digby is, you sleep in Martha’s room and we’ve been enjoying Cook’s wonderful meals. I would like you to meet them. The board meetings I attend are often run on something called a Zoom program, I can text on my phone and Martha talks about ‘skypeing’ with her family in England. I think one of those could be used to contact my staff and find out how they are, but my computer skills are limited to texting, email and making phone calls with some research for the boards I’m on. Emelina actually was more computer literate than she knew.
The next short while was spent finding the email addresses of Emelina’s staff, accessing the best program. They decided to use Skype for Martha and Zoom for Digby. After they had spoken with both of them, Dez and Emmie decided which one was easier. Dez had been dying to find out about Digby, so jumped on Emmie’s requests almost before she finished talking, but Emmie had more to say.
“Dez, I want to find out if they need anything and if I can do anything for them. They’re probably wondering if they will continue to be paid! And they’d never ask. I’ll check my bank to see what my own funds are…..oh, heavens, I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Emelina depended on Dez now, more than she had ever thought possible. Digby had always managed her house account. But her personal accounts? She knew how to access her own accounts but hadn’t for days. The money her husband had left to her had always been more than enough to retain all of the staff. Emelina sat down with the sudden realization of the responsibilities she had been neglecting and really not even realizing. Dez saw her sister was shaken, her face pale. She looked ready to cry.
“Hey, sis. Slow down. We can get this all organized. It’s ok. We’ll talk to Digby and to Martha and see what they would ordinarily do. That will give us a good start.” Dez stood up and stretched. Sitting at the table, on either side of the green tape but far enough apart, they had been working on the computer they had stationed on the counter. Emmie had the keyboard and mouse while Dez told her what to click on. It was a pretty arduous task. “ But right now, it’s getting kind of late. Between this screen scrounge and that walk I took earlier, I’m hungry. I’ll cook up a mushroom and egg scramble. We’ll have grilled cheese and ham sandwiches for supper. Ice cream with peaches for dessert? We’ll do more work once we’ve had good meal. ”
“You didn’t realize what was passing you by until
you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.”
~ Karin Slaughter, Undone
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