Miki coughed, “Brigid.”
“I’m not going to say that ye’re wrong, but I had a hand in it.” He laughed, kissing Miki on the temple before letting him go. “Ye make Kane stretch outside of himself. With ye he learns to compromise, because while he is an irresistible force, ye are an immovable object at times, and this makes him stop and change course. So while I have made him the best man that I could raise, ye are making him a better man, because ye love him but won’t take any of his shit. So that, Mick, is why I could never imagine anyone but ye by Kane’s side, and it was one of the happiest days in our lives when he brought ye home, so I knew right then and there, ye’d be a son of our hearts and a blessing on this family.”
Strawberries in the Office
“DR. MORGAN, can you get into why the introduction of foreign dyes and fabrics was important to England’s industrial growth?”
Quinn turned, hearing the groans from the other students in his class. Only three weeks into the twice-weekly sessions and he’d already discovered Sarah Yarbo was as curious as she was awkward. Younger than the others by at least two years, he felt a bit of empathy toward her struggling to keep up socially, even as he understood why the others were frustrated by her questions. It was supposed to be an easy history class, something to be taken to fulfill a requirement or use as a stepping stone to get to a higher level. Sarah wanted more, and there was nothing Quinn wanted more for her than to let her explore the past and guide her through the interesting things she would find.
It was hard being an adult. Hard not diving at the White Rabbit carrying green dyes and watered silks. His brain twitched, longing to go down roads he’d gone down before to share the marvels and oddness of things he’d stumbled across. He could spend hours on the poisons people used in their everyday life simply to make their eyes whiter or bring a bloom to their cheeks, even drifting over to the devious ways people murdered their family or business partners using what were, back then, everyday products. Mysteries stretched out around them, and it would only take a single tug on a thread to unravel them so they could be held up to the light and examined.
Sadly, the other eighty-five students sitting around her weren’t so keen on the journey, and they simply didn’t have the time for side quests.
“You know, that’s a lot to talk about.” He picked through his words carefully, not wanting to turn her curiosity away but instead, put it on hold. “And hell, you could go so many ways with that, because it isn’t just economic but also social influence. Or even the development of different patterns and fabrics which then became iconic British standards but had their roots in imports. Kind of like chicken tikka masala. Which is Indian in influence but a lot of people say was invented in Scotland. It’s an interesting rabbit hole to fall into. Digging stuff out, I mean.
“How about if you send me an email about what you’d like to learn about and I can steer you towards sources. I’ve got a series of videos I follow where a woman in Wales is reconstructing Victorian and Edwardian dresses based off of fashion plates printed during those times.” Sarah perked up, her eyes bright behind the glasses she constantly shoved up the bridge of her nose. Quinn pointed to the whiteboard where he left his contact information scribbled in the top right corner. “There’s some books you’d like too. And a couple of virtual exhibits you can walk through about fabrics and industrial inventions. I’ll put that together for you, so email me, and we’ll go back to the migration of ethnic foods through Great Britain and how they influenced other cuisines.”
It was hard to read a room sometimes, especially if he let himself fall into the expounding on why something happened, thinking other people would find a subject interesting. It was the hardest thing about trying to stay human sometimes. His nature was to dig, more badger than magpie, he often believed, thinking of his family’s nickname for him, but in a lot of ways, they were right. Anything sparkly caught his attention, and the world held so many sparkly things, including British dye techniques and French