An unreasonable request Dorian’s mother was not best pleased with the requests she had received from Sonora the previous week. Professor Mary Brooding wanted to take her son away to Greece to participate in her wedding.
The simple and obvious answer was that no, she absolutely could not. And Ài Héng felt absolutely no concern whatsoever about giving that answer to Mary Brooding - a woman whom she did not know and whose happiness was immaterial to her.
She would have said ‘to whom she owed nothing’ but that was not quite true. This woman looked after Dorian. Ài Héng knew her child. She knew he got himself worried when there was nothing to be worried about. She knew that he had come home with clouds behind his eyes from time to time. She knew he spent a lot of time talking to Mary Brooding. He had talked of her only in an appropriate way, of the teacherly things about her, her labelled bottles, the books on her shelves, the academic subjects they had discussed. But it was clear that Dorian was fond of her, and he did not give his affection that lightly. Whether he told Mary Brooding what was bothering him, she did not know, but she at the very least gave him reasons to be happy and time off from worrying, and for that his mother was grateful, however many little stabs of unbecoming jealousy she felt at the idea that Dorian might be trusting someone else with things he would not entrust to her.
Still, she was not convinced that it meant she owed Mary Brooding her son’s time and attendance at her wedding. It felt like quite the price. And so, although she recognised that she clearly had merit, Ài Héng had no difficulty in simply telling Mary Brooding that she did not feel it was appropriate. Her response had been that she felt this was asking something beyond the bounds of a normal teacher-student relationship. That she had concerns about her child being taken to the other side of the world by a woman she had never met. That whilst Mary Brooding was clearly a responsible person who took care of Dorian in school, this was different.
There was the second letter though. The one that had accompanied Mary Brooding’s, begging her (sweetly, gently, and respectfully) to say ‘yes.’ And that one was from someone she had a great deal of difficulty in disappointing.
And thus her response had gone on to say that she would prefer to speak to Mary Brooding properly about all this. That she could not make a decision without knowing more about it. That she knew she could not leave the school, but perhaps they could arrange a time for a Floo call. And that she did not promise anything. But they would see.