Home

Personal Arts

Literary Arts

Visual Arts

Needle Arts

Network Arts

Writings

A Mother's Tale

Through Shadows Falling

Respectable Roguery

Through Shadows Falling

Copyright 2003 Amie Marie Holloway

[Italics = flashback. And this scene occurs decades before she meets the other characters featured in Respectable Roguery]

*click* I didn't say good-bye. I never even rose from the table. I hear your boots on the stair, yet still I sit. Your voice carries up from the stable yard, calling for your horse, and I finally push the chair back. Not until I hear hoofs clattering on the cobbles at the gate do I stand and go to the window. All I see is a shadow disappearing rapidly in the dusk.

"Where, exactly, do I fit in?"

"What do you mean, 'fit in'?"

"I mean, am I your lover, or just window dressing? You seem to go to a lot of trouble to make sure people know I'm yours, but don't seem to care whether I live or die otherwise.

"How can you say that? You know that I love you--

"No, Ashni, I don't know that. You say it. In fact, you say it a lot. But I honestly don't know if you mean it."

I can't go after you. I can't. There is too much at stake for me to run after you like a lovesick teenager. I have...I have to think of the business.... Why can't you understand that? It doesn't mean I don't love you.

"I can't be a second thought, Ashni. I won't live my life waiting for you to remember I'm here. Maybe I'm as self-centered as you, but I need to know I'm worth a little more than packaged goods."

Second thought? Do you really think that? I have to keep my priorities in order. Ok, sometimes clients came before you but you know I have commitments....

"You always told me it was your father's obsession with his business that killed your parents' relationship. Did it ever occur to you that you are turning out to be quite your father's daughter?

"....."

"Well? No witty denial or glib comeback? Put a big star on the calendar--Ashni Mehal is at a loss for words! No one would ever have thought it possible. I can't do this anymore."

Were you trying to hurt me? Had I really treated you so badly? I couldn't believe you would actually go...yet you were throwing your possessions in your bags with little of the care you usually show. I didn't stop you. I didn't think you were serious. I thought you wouldn't walk out the door. I just sat and stared when you looked back that last time...and then closed the door after you.

I didn't even say good-bye...