Fire the guards, she tells him. The girl is already too good.
The man does appreciate that Gloria has found humor in this parental plight, but his own good humor on the subject is slow to emerge despite the easy smile he wears.
There have been these dreams of standing on the shore of an ocean, observing its retreating waters with wonder and doubt. Yet when those green waters fold into a hulking mass barreling down, so terror and vulnerability leave him frozen and unable to run.
Her words of advice are absorbed like a sponge, at the same time they thrust him out of illusion and into an uncomfortable state of transparency. Herein, he is aware of the many mistakes he has already made. Rules inconsistent with personality, a heavier hand applied when a gentler one was needed. Rapport gone uncultivated.
Gloria’s wisdom shares space with a knot of tension building in his gut and he has no voice for these things, save what is spoken by the way he claws short dark hair forward and pulls his palm down over his face, covering the mouth in a pinch of thumb and fingers. He needed to change his mind, scrap his blueprints and start over with a simpler design. If it did not work for Adeline, he would start over again.
But the man has asked for diversion and Gloria supplies it.
The Meetinghouse undergoes finish work. The Council is scattered. Changes, if necessary, will be made.
While he listens to her describe her purpose for the printing press, and also the state of affairs in Myrken Wood’s political corridors, the architect’s gaze is forward and involved with the changing colors and shadows beyond the slouching entryway of the farmhouse. Yet he sees these things without focusing them; awareness without thoughtful inspection. Rather, the object of his thought is the faceted matter she has presented. Make this place safe for your daughter, and mine.
For what seems minutes, he occupies this silence, still and wordless. A behavior Ariane Emory had endured for years, ever patient with his retreat into internal states and ever willing to re-engage once he had emerged with a voice restored. So much strain he had selfishly inflicted on her.
Such selfishness, such self-mindedness.
Stricken, he breaks the silence. “What can I do to help.”