It was such a contradiction: He needed his environment spotless and precisely ordered, but his personal hygiene and what he wore were not an issue at all. Although perhaps it made sense. Caught up in his tangled thoughts, he got too distracted by his delusions to be self-aware.
The meds were helping, though, and it showed as he met her eye and actually saw her.
"Daughter mine," he said in the Old Language, "how fare thee this night?"
She responded as he preferred, in the mother tongue. "Well, my father. And you?"
He bowed with the grace of the aristocrat he was by blood and had been by station. "As always I am charmed by your greeting. Ah, yes, the doggen has put out my juice. How good of her."
Her father sat with a swish of his robes, and he picked up the ceramic mug as if it were fine English china. "Whither thou goest?"
"To work. I am going to work."
Her father frowned as he sipped. "You are well aware I do not approve of your industry outside of the home. A lady of your breeding should not be tendering her hours as such."
"I know, father mine. But it makes me happy."
His face softened. "Well, that is different. Alas, I do not understand the younger generation. Your mother managed the household and the servants and the gardens, and that was plenty to engage her nightly impulses."
Ehlena looked down, thinking that her mother would weep to see where they had ended up. "I know."
"You shall do as you will, though, and I shall love you e'ermore."
She smiled at the words she'd heard all of her life. And on that note..."Father?"
He lowered the mug. "Yes?"
"I shall be a bit late in getting home this evening."
"Indeed? Why for?"
"I am going to have coffee with a male-"
"What is that?"
The change in his tone brought her head up, and she looked around to see what-Oh, no...
"Nothing, Father, verily, it is nothing." She quickly went over to the spoon she'd used to crush the pills and picked it up, rushing for the sink like she had a burn that needed cold water stat.
Her father's voice quavered. "What...what was it doing? I-"
Ehlena quickly dried the spoon and slipped it in the drawer. "See? All gone. See?" She pointed to where it had been. "The counter is clean. There's nothing there."
"It was there...I saw it. Metal objects are not to be left...It's not safe to...Who left it...Who left it out...Who left the spoon-"
"The maid did."
"The maid! Again! She must be fired. I have told her-nothing metal is left out nothing metal is left out nothing metal is left out-they-are-watching-andtheywillpunishthosewhodisobeytheyarecloserthanweknowand-"
In the beginning, when her father's attacks had first occurred, Ehlena had reached out to him as he got agitated, thinking a pat on the shoulder or a comforting hand in his own would help. Now she knew better. The less sensory input into his brain, the faster the rolling hysteria slowed: On the advice of his nurse, Ehlena pointed out the reality to him once and then didn't move or speak.
It was hard, though, to watch him suffer and be unable to do anything to help. Especially when it was her fault.
Her father's head shook back and forth, the agitation frothing his hair up into a fright wig of crazy frizz, while in his wobbling grip, CranRas jumped out of the mug, splashing on his veined hand and the sleeve of the robe and the pitted Formica tabletop. From his trembling lips, the staccato beats of syllables increased, his internal record getting played at an ever-higher speed, the flush of madness riding up the column of his throat and flaring in his cheeks.
Ehlena prayed this wasn't going to be a bad one. The attacks, when they came, varied in intensity and duration, and the drugs helped shrink both metrics. But sometimes the illness bested the chemical management.
As her father's words became too crowded to comprehend and he dropped the mug on the floor, all Ehlena could do was wait and pray to the Scribe Virgin that this would pass soon. Forcing her feet to stay glued to the crappy linoleum, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her rib cage.