Dolores Ambershate

[CheeseWedge]

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid." - Franklin P. Jones

“Yer feet’re hangin’ offa tha end’ve yer bed, Dolly,” Dolores’ father pointed out one day, a childish grin on his weathered face. The expression crinkled the dry and leathery skin at the corners of his eyes and mouth - many years of hard work in the fields had not been kind to his aging face. “Tha’ must mean yer all grown up now, aye?”

Dolores, who had been busy sorting out the eggs she had just spent the morning hunting down and collecting, paid no attention to how random the topic was. He was her father, after all, and he would have to work very hard if he ever wanted to catch her off guard. “Naah. I think that ya let me work the plow means’m all grown up, Da,” she played along, though she highly doubted that being twelve years old qualified as being an adult.

“Ahh, righ‘,” her father agreed with a slow nod, rubbing his short-trimmed beard. “An’ if I take up yer laundry an’ cookin’ chores, does tha’ make me tha babe an’ you tha parent?”

Dolores just snorted a short and amused laugh at that and, with a shake of her head, silently went back to work.

They joked about it to lighten the mood - optimism was a requirement in that household - but they both knew that the man of the house, and Dolores’ only living family, was very ill. He had been for several months and it only appeared to be getting worse. As he grew weaker, Dolores had to take up more of the strenuous farm work, despite her youthful age. She pretended not to mind, as she enjoyed helping out and taking on the adult responsibilities, but the worry for her father’s health was quite a weight on the twelve-year-old’s mind.

The small family of two had tried several methods to improve Mr. Ambershate’s state. They had tried home remedies and cures, they had taken him to a doctor in the nearby town of Daggerford, and several of the priests that frequented the Trade Way would visit and try their hand at curing his mysterious illness. Nothing ever seemed to work and it didn‘t take long for even optimistic Dolores to entertain the thought that he might never get better.

After her father had turned back further into the house - probably to collect the laundry- young Dolores set the last egg gently into the bowl in front of her and allowed herself to frown. She bet that if Jilo would just come by that year, he would be able to fix her father right up, for sure.

"Wishing you were here."

[CheeseWedge]

A portrait of Dolores Ambershate.