The Blessing
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Alfred J. Kwak
Copyright: Herman van Veen
/
"Hi, Alfred," said Tom cheerfully. "Winnie's still at work, but come on in."
"Yeah. Uh, sure. Don't mind if I do," Alfred squeaked, waddling through the door and into the hallway in a high state of nerves.
The cottage Tom and Winnie shared was small but cozy, with wooden walls, soft armchairs and simple, old-fashioned furniture not unlike Alfred's own house. As far as he was concerned, they could have lived with him indefinitely, but he respected Winnie's need to make her own way in her new country. From the pile of sneakers and sports equipment by the door, the young boy's presence was the most obvious, but Alfred sensed Winnie's touch in the cleanliness of the place, as well as the warm shades of rose, green and gold in the cushions and wallpaper. She had a gift for bringing comfort anywhere she went … which brought Alfred right back to the reason he was here.
"You wanna play?" Tom scooped up a soccer ball from the hall closet and tossed it eagerly from one wing to another. "I learned some great moves from the kids at school."
A soccer game on the green meadow behind the house sounded like fun, but Alfred's mission was much more important. Besides, if he didn't get this out now, he might lose his nerve. If there was anything his years of adventuring had taught him, it was that sometimes you had to jump right in.
"Thanks, but … maybe later?" He cleared his throat and loosened his scarf, which always felt a little too tight when he got nervous. "I'm actually here because I need to talk to you. You know, just us guys?"
"Yeah?" asked Tom. "About what?"
"I want to ask Winnie to marry me," he blurted out.
The soccer ball fell with a thump and rolled along the floor. Tom's beak fell open.
" … And since your parents can't be here, it'd mean a lot to me if I could have your blessing."
He twisted the scarf around and around as he waited for Tom to answer. The boy liked him as a person, but seemed to think it was his brotherly duty to guard his sister from any male attention. Whenever the three of them went out on the river, Tom always made a point of swimming between Alfred and Winnie, and during their vacation on Aroba, he'd hardly let them out of his sight. If Tom would accept Alfred as a brother-in-law, it would mean almost as much as Winnie accepting him as a husband.
Tom shook his head as if to clear it, adjusted his baseball cap, and looked up at Alfred with narrow black eyes. "What if I say no?"
"I'd be awfully disappointed, but I'd ask her anyway," was his honest answer. "Don't you want your sister to be happy?"
"She's happy now," Tom retorted, wings on hips. "We're okay like this. Since Papa and Mama left, it's our job to look after each other. You're a good guy, Alfred, but that doesn't mean you get to take her away."
He drew himself up and fluffed his brown feathers as high as they would go, trying to look as grown-up as possible, but to Alfred's eyes, he looked and sounded heartbreakingly young. It was like seeing himself as a duckling, bravado and all, and that made it all too easy to read between the lines. Of course Tom had been hurt by his parents' departure. Of course he was afraid of losing the only family he had left.
You're the eldest, Alfred remembered his father say – Johan, not Henk – as gentle wings settled him back into the nest with six still-unhatched eggs. Look after your brothers and sisters. But he'd been too distracted to see that car coming down the road until it was too late. Henk had sworn it wasn't his fault, he was only a baby and there was nothing he could have done, and eventually he'd learned to believe it. But ever since then, he'd found it impossible to ignore anyone who needed looking after.
"I'm not taking away your sister, Tom, I swear." Alfred took a knee so they were at eye level. "My idea was that you'd both move back to my place. We could be a family, all four of us: you, Winnie, me and Henk. That doesn't sound so bad, eh?"
Tom's frown became more speculative than suspicious. "Would I get to have the upstairs room again?"
"Sure." This time, thank goodness, they wouldn't have to share it.
"And swim in the river and play ball on the grass?"
"All the time."
"And watch whatever I want on TV?"
"You'll have to take that up with Winnie," said Alfred, dodging the question as best he could. There was a long-standing argument between the Wana siblings about how much violence was appropriate for Tom to watch. Alfred liked a good cowboy western himself, but knew better than to interfere with Winnie's guardianship. She was every bit as fierce about protecting her little brother as vice versa.
"Okay, I guess." Tom shrugged, rolled his eyes and made a show of being reluctant, but Alfred could spot the beginning of a smile on his face all the same. "You can marry her."
"Thank you, thank you!" Alfred bounced back to his feet and swept the startled boy up in a hug that knocked his baseball cap askew. "You don't know how much this means to me."
After all these years as an only child, he'd have a brother again.
"Just make sure you know what you're getting into," said Tom, grinning from ear to ear as he adjusted the cap. "She can be awfully bossy, and she holds one hell of a grudge. But I guess you already know that, right?"
Alfred did know that. Before he could say anything in response, however, they were interrupted by the bang of the front door flying open.
Behind it stood Winnie, wings folded, one foot tapping ominously on the welcome mat, black eyes smoldering like a pair of hot coals.
"Uh … hi!" Alfred chirped. "You're home early."
"The Professor's meeting was canceled." She shut the door behind her and advanced slowly on Tom and Alfred, backing them into the living room step by step. "Lucky I did come back early, or I would've missed out on hearing what my little brother really thinks of me. So I'm bossy and hold grudges, do I? Thank you very much."
"C'mon, Win," said brother scoffed. "It's not like you didn't know that already."
Winnie took a step forward. Tom blew a raspberry at her, turned tail and ran.
"Thomas Rohilahla Wana, get back here!"
Alfred scrambled to get out of the way of the ensuing chase. Normally he'd be the first to admit that Winnie was the mature one in the relationship, but Tom brought out the child in her like no one else. They bounced off the sofa, threw pillows, knocked over a lamp that Alfred set upright again, and before he knew it, Winnie had Tom pinned in a well-practiced headlock. Still, to someone who had been in as many fights as Alfred, it was obvious that she wasn't actually hurting her brother. He wouldn't squirm so much otherwise.
"Gotcha! Now what do you say?" Winnie demanded.
"I'm sorry!" Tom squawked.
"For… "
"Talking bad about you behind your back?"
"And … "
"And it's not gonna happen again?"
"That's more like it." She let go, shaking out her wings with a satisfied nod. "Now if you'll excuse us, I'd like a word with Alfred … in private."
The warning look in her eyes encompassed them both. Tom scampered away down the hall and into his own room, though not before shooting Alfred a you're-in-trouble-now look behind his sister's back.
Winnie folded her wings.
Alfred tugged on his scarf.
The ticking clock on the mantelpiece was the only sound in the room.
"I know I said something stupid," he burst out. "But please tell me exactly what it was. Let's not have another Shakespeare incident, okay? Anything but that."
"Fine, I will," Winnie said coolly. "Why would you think planning out my future without me was in any way a good idea?"
Alfred sighed ruefully. "When you put it like that, I guess you're right."
If he'd found out that Winnie was planning to propose to him, he'd be ecstatic (and a little bit terrified), no matter how the information reached him. But then, he'd never really known what it was like to feel powerless in the same ways she had.
"This isn't the Middle Ages, you know. I'm fully capable of making my own decisions."
"I know. And if you're not ready, I totally understand."
"Ugh, honestly … "
Winnie let out a huff of frustration and shook her dreadlocked head. Alfred's overactive imagination was already predicting his future as an embittered bachelor growing old in his clog-shaped house, but what she said next shattered that worst-case scenario into a million pieces.
"I've been ready for months, silly," said Winnie, cracking a smile for the first time all afternoon. "I just wanted you to ask me first."
"Really?" Alfred had to brace himself against the armrest of a nearby sofa. Certain kinds of joy, he'd discovered since meeting her, could knock you off balance as surely as fear.
"Didn't you notice me dropping hints all over the place? What did you think I meant when I said babysitting Ollie's nestlings would be practice for yours?"
Nestlings. His. Theirs. The idea made him dizzy. It was a dangerous world and nurturing wasn't his strong point, but on the other wing, Winnie would be the best mother anyone could wish for. As for him, he'd go through hell and high water to protect his family … but he'd have to start one first.
"I was working on it! My proposal. I knew you'd want it to be romantic, and I was trying to think of someplace nice to take you, like a restaurant or concert, just not somewhere that would remind you of Duckson. And I had this speech, but I must've ripped it up a million times, I mean, campaign speeches for Ollie are one thing, but – "
"Alfred." Winnie caught him by the shoulders. "Breathe."
He did. He breathed in the smell of ink and paper she carried with her from the university, the coconut oil she used on her hair, and the fragrance that belonged to her alone. He met her shining black eyes and couldn't look away.
"I like a romantic gesture as much as the next girl," she said, "But I couldn't care less where it happens or how much it costs. All I've ever wanted to know is whether you mean it. When you leave, I need to be sure you'll come back."
The Shakespeare incident came back into his mind. He'd been hopelessly confused as well as heartbroken by her anger that night, but since then, he'd been learning to understand. She hadn't broken up with him just for making her miss out on Hamlet. She'd done it because of all the times she'd waited for him under much worse conditions, not even knowing if he'd make it out alive. She'd also done it because he'd been too preoccupied with the news about Dolf's trial to remember her, which really was a mistake. No wonder she had doubted.
Time to show her the truth, Alfred decided, the sooner the better. He wasn't nervous anymore; he had never felt so clear-headed in his life.
He went down on one knee and took both her wings in his.
"You can be sure, I promise. Remember when you asked me who was more important to me, you or Dolf?"
"I shouldn't have said that," she demurred. "I was so angry … "
"Anyway, it made me think. The most important part of my life isn't who I hate, it's who I love. I should've never let the one get in the way of the other. I love you, Winnie, and if you let me, I'll spend the rest of my life proving it. Will you marry me?"
It wasn't the elaborate speech he'd written and rewritten over the past few months, but he meant every word of it, and true to her own word, Winnie understood. She was smiling radiantly, even as tears ran down her face.
"Yes! Yes, of course!"
She pulled him to his feet, held him close, and gave him a kiss he'd never forget.
Henk had told Alfred the story of how his birth parents had fallen in love. Johan had been worried about commitment too. You're so married when you marry, he'd told Henk, but getting to know Anna had turned all his preconceptions upside down. As for her, she'd been pursued by the wealthiest drakes in the neighborhood, but had accepted Johan's humble gift of a flower instead, because he was the only one who paid attention to what she liked instead showing off his possessions. Marriage really had changed Johan and Anna, and would change Alfred and Winnie too, but it was a change he welcomed. They'd be a family, just as he'd promised.
Thump. His visions of the future were interrupted by – of all things – a soccer ball flying past his and Winnie's heads.
"Watch where you put those wings, buddy," said Tom, standing in the doorway. "You're not married yet."
"Go away, Tom!" Alfred and Winnie chorused.
"You said you'd play soccer with me."
"I did, didn't I? Fair enough." Alfred adjusted the ribbon on Winnie's tail with some compunction (he hadn't meant to get it so crumpled) and picked up the soccer ball from where it had landed on the sofa. "Do you mind, love?"
"Not at all," said Winnie, smiling at them both. "As long as you wipe your feet before you come back in."
They already sounded like a married couple, thought Alfred delightedly.
He blew one more kiss at Winnie, tucked the ball under his arm and ran for the door. With a squawk of mock outrage, his little brother followed.