Pretty Baby

three

The car's tires crackled over the driveway gravel as Amelia watched it leave her under the dry refuge of her front porch. The porch light was still on. Either it would be on for her or-

Another car's headlights blinded her for a moment and she blinked hard to see who was coming up the drive in such a rush. The car came to a stop and the unmistakable cigarette hanging from her brother's lips illuminated his face despite the downpour. He took his time walking up the steps until he noticed his sister with a halo of pale light from the obnoxious fixture above.

Alexander disdained this light. It wasn't the light itself that left a bad taste in his mouth but the meaning of his mother leaving it on when he was not home yet. Being twenty five he was getting tired of living at home, but there wasn't a woman worth the leap of faith to him as of yet and leaving the family home beforehand when it would be his to inherit wouldn't be proper. The light would have to keep on and he would have to endure it.

"Hello, brother," Amelia whispers softly and Alexander snorts.

"Evening, sister," he says under the refuge of the covering over the porch. "Why are you whispering? It's raining, no one can hear you indoors anyway."

Amelia turned to the door, smiling. "You have a good point. I just don't like being so late at night and the parents having a fit."

"They mean well, but-" Alexander noticed the hovering light again. "I understand where you're coming from. It's annoying, I agree. Find a suitable person for father to like and give you two a grand house like this, and then have me come stay with you, won't you?"

It was her turn to laugh. "Why me, Alex? They favor your picks better."

Her older brother sighed, knowing where this conversation usually took them. He began to call the help telephone and after a short greeting and exchange of conversation, a maid came to the door quietly letting them inside and locking the door behind them. Amelia resorted back to whispering and wouldn't let go.

"Even the girls that don't stay for long, even for just one outing, they approve so quickly of who you choose to be seen on your arm and I-" She shook his arms free of his coat and handed it to the maid. "I am but a stain on the family name."

She added a dramatic flair when she wanted to lighten the mood, but Alexander had quite a bit on his mind at the moment. He carried this baggage everywhere lately as if all these thoughts, anxieties and ideas were placed in his care and the creator never to come back for them. His head felt this immense crowding and realized it had become too loud again when he heard his name a third time.

"-lexander, are you listening to me?" 

He looked Amelia in the eye, lightning sparking through the stained glass of the front door behind him. "Listen, we are very important to this family, to our way of life. You and I both have roles to take seriously and unfortunately we are too old now to be playing with the same pickings. Ace is tolerable but that shouldn't be a term for a potential brother in law, especially when marriage for you or myself is not a joke. You don't see anyone else and this worries mother and father. They want to see you taken care of."

Amelia tried to barge through his words but failed. She wanted to defend herself so badly but what would she say? He was right after all. Except for tonight, she thought to herself. He paused and held her shoulders gently. It was now that Amelia realized how tired her brother truly was. He wasn't one to boast about how much was always going on in his life, business or leisure, but in this moment she saw saw it very clearly in his eyes and in the intensity of his shoulders. He wasn't just simply exhausted; he was a shell of the cheerful boy he once was.