She stopped precisely two feet from her brother’s chair.
She did not slap the teacup from his table.
She reached out with her weathered, liver-spotted right hand, picked up the porcelain cup, brought it to her nose, took a delicate, appreciative breath of the steam, and looked down into his dilated pupils with an expression of such cold, absolute, un-diluted disgust that the old Admiral shrank backward into the leather:
“My heart stopped for forty-eight seconds, Arthur,” Eleanor said softly.
Her voice had no heat. It was fifty decibels of pure, un-forgiving arctic iron:
“And while my heart was stopped…”
She pointed her hickory stick at me:
“…this young man broke his knuckles against my ribs to start it again.”
Eleanor took a slow sip of the tea:
“Clara’s chamomile has always been exceptional, Arthur. She uses three drops of clover honey from her father’s apiary in the valley.”
