The Attainment of Evangeline

Chapter 12

As a few days passed, Evangeline began to notice how well Jack was improving. He began to sleep less, keeping the hours reasonable. He ate more, drank more, was happier, and his wound was beginning to lose the coloring of infection. She had also graduated from the oversized chair in her room to a makeshift bed she had arranged in the small wash room adjacent to hers, allowing her to sleep better.

She wished things were advancing as well with her father. She had caught him passed out at the kitchen table the night before, reeking of liquor, smoke, and a hideously strong perfume. He had been out that night, she had discovered, at the local tavern. Was this something new or had he snuck out before?

This particular morning, she planned to confront him about it in, perhaps, a last ditch effort to clean him up. She stepped out of the large basin that was in the wash room, her black hair wet. She grabbed a towel and dried herself off. She dressed herself in a quarter-sleeve white cotton dress; one of her last ones that required a corset and which also used to belong to her mother. She brushed her hair out and pinned it up, still wet.

She took a deep breath and told herself to just get it over with, she didn't want to fight but she could no longer stand idily by while her father drowned himself in drink and sorrow. It wasn't fair. She had no time to mourn her mother's death because she was too busy taking care of everyone else. She wished her father would grow up. It was uncharacteristically selfish of him to act the child of the family while she acted the adult.

She didn't stop to see if Jack was awake yet, she stormed passed her door to her father's study and knocked. There was no answer and she hadn't really waited for one anyway, she opened the door and let herself in. Upon entering, she realized her father wasn't there. She walked over to his small desk that was scattered with parchment.

She wanted to look through them but at the same time she knew she shouldn't. She scanned over them and out of the corner of her eye she read something that caught her attention. She picked that particular paper up and began to read.

"Dear Mr. McKenna,

It has come to my attention that you are several months late on your payment that was arranged. If I do not hear from you regarding the remaining balance owed, I will be forced to go to the bank to sort this out."

She set the parchment down and picked up another. It read along the same lines yet the name at the bottom was different. She took a seat in the chair and read more. Her father owed on a merchant ship bought years ago that he never fully paid for; he owed countless unknown people for loans she knew nothing about. She then came across something that greatly bothered her: a paper that had been used by her father to figure out their financial situation, numbers were scrawled everywhere, totals added up and at the bottom a staggeringly large number in the negative circled several times.

They were completely broke. Ruined. She let the paper fall back into the pile on the desk and she ran her hand across her face. Her father had left them penniless. She was startled as her father walked in, his boots loud against the wood flooring, a bottle in his hand. He looked at her for a minute before setting his bottle on the empty fireplace.

"What have you done to us?" she asked, barely above a whisper.

Her father remained silent and that angered her. He only looked out the window behind Evangeline as if she wasn't even there. She stood up, gathering the papers in a neat pile.

"You were at the tavern last night, weren't you?"

"What makes you think that, dear?" he said, his voice gravelly.

"Because I found you in the kitchen, passed out and reeking of drink and whores," she said, pretending to still pile the papers so he wouldn't have to look at him.