"Look at you... That gray hair."
Zoe, objectively, can't. Keeps her head down, hands laced in front of her. Feeling rather like a little girl, oddly.
Uncle Joe speaks on. Slow, and rough, and rounded. "Got mighty thin, too." Breath. "...Like your brother." He adds a hoarse, pebbly little chuckle.
Joe liked Lucas.
She licks her lips. Head lowering, as he cracks out a "hhho - ...!
"...You're lookin' like an old woman, Zoe."
He's attempting to cheer her up, as a man to whom old age ain't but a joke.
...She smiles. So's not to be unappreciative.
"Funny."
Means it, though.
July 31st. "Final".