The Heart's Content

Chapter 26

The next day after Beth was dropped off at school, Alastor and Charlie decided to just take things easy today and sit at the house until time to go to the cabaret. He mostly spent the day reading while she watched more of the TV. Nothing really eventful happened but around noon when he came out of his room to fix them a small lunch, he noticed that Charlie was crying.

"Charlie whatever is the matter?" He asked her concerned. 

She pointed over to the TV screen which was broadcasting an old gangster movie.

"This is horrible." She sobbed.

"What is?"

"They just killed that poor man. They shot him in the head and left him on the street. He didn't do anything wrong, he was just an innocent bystander."

"That's what has you so upset? Oh Charlie." He chuckled.  "Honey he's not really dead."

"He isn't?"

"No. No, it's just make believe. That's an actor pretending to be dead."

"Why would he do that?"

"For entertainment."

"You mean you people find death entertaining?"

"Not exactly. The main focus of this movie isn't that the man died. Well it is cause it's a revenge story but that's not the entertaining part. The entertainment comes from the characters who avenge him. How they struggle with their anger and grief. Do you understand that?"

"I think so. So no one really died in there?"

"No one really died. You read books right?"

"Right."

"And you know that the characters in books aren't rel right?"

"Right."

"Well it's the same with characters in movies and TV shows."

"Oh..." She said getting the idea. "Okay. Now I feel so stupid."

"Don't. It's not your fault you don't know about these things. Nobody ever taught you about them. But you're learning about them now and that's all that matters."

He grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and started to wipe away her tears.

"Now stop weeping over such nonsense and smile. You know you're never fully dressed withiut one."

She smiled and giggled which made Alastor very happy. He did not like to see tears stain her lovely face. Just as he had never liked to see tears stain the faces of his sister and mother. 

"You know I think that's enough TV for today." He said switching off the device. "Why don't you read a little something while I get lunch ready?"

Charlie nodded and walked over to the shelf where they kept their favorite books. She slowly ran her fingers over each spine of the books, reading their titles and seeing if any would appeal to her. There was quite a selection;

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald,

The Godfather by Mario Puzo,