Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

brought Patrick Dooley and David Kentewess from the Scientific Society in New Leiden.”
    A shaggy wolfhound sleeping in front of a fire trotted across the parlor to greet Komlan and immediately stole Dooley’s attention. Di Fiore’s gaze sharpened on David.
    “Kentewess? Are you acquainted with Stone Kentewess?”
    “My father,” David said.
    “And so you are the one who lost his legs.” He looked David over again. “You seem to have done well enough despite that. It’s incredible how technology aids us.”
    He’d done well enough? Undoubtedly. But his legs weren’t the only thing he’d lost, and technology sure as hell hadn’t helped his mother.
    Courtesy , David reminded himself. Di Fiore likely had no idea. As his father had often reminded him, every man had a choice: feed that which makes you happy, or feed that which makes you rage. David wasn’t certain what Lorenzo di Fiore had chosen, but he seemed to have done well enough, too.
    David always chose that which pleased him—and his life did please him. Still, it was an effort to say, “Yes.”
    Di Fiore must have realized his misstep. “Not that it was easy, of course. You must still feel the effects of that disaster. I do, too. It seems we are forever visited by the sins of our fathers, however good their intentions. And how is your father?”
    “Dead.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that. My father said he was a clever machinist.”
    “He was.”
    “Your father once sent mine a letter, forgiving him and praising him for attempting to create good in this world, because so few men ever did. That letter meant very much to my father, so muchthat it was one of the few things he took with him from the insanitarium. Have you ever been inside one?”
    An insanitarium? “No.”
    “Pray that you never are. I read that letter during one of my few visits. I’d spent many years wishing that I was someone else’s son—my mother changed her name to escape the stares and the hateful accusations—but your father’s words made me understand, for the first time, what a great mind my father had, the importance of what he’d tried to do, and the tragedy of locking him away in that place. I vowed that I’d get him out, and dedicated the next decade to seeing him freed.”
    A tragedy to lock him away? Thanks to di Fiore, thousands of others had suffered a different sort of tragedy. But there were few things David despised more than conversations where the participants tried to outdo each other by comparing woes and suffering. Perhaps the man had paid enough for it. That wasn’t for David to say.
    But he perfectly understood being driven by a promise. “It appears you succeeded.”
    “Too late, perhaps.” Di Fiore was silent for a moment, then clapped his hands together. The effort he made to lighten the mood made his smile appear as if fishhooks had been caught in the corners of his mouth and given a tug. “Let us go on up and eat, shall we? The dining room is on the second floor. Can you manage the stairs, Kentewess?”
    Goddamn it. He knew the man only meant to be thoughtful, but if David needed help, he’d bludging well ask for it. His gritted teeth prevented every response but a nod.
    Dooley clapped him on the shoulder before preceding him up. Yes, his friend had seen this before. Too often, after someone learned of his legs, it was all that they saw in him, all that they thought about, and took a full pendulum swing away from ignoring the prosthetics’ existence. Instead, they became overly concerned, coddlinghim before every move. All well intended, but by God, even good intentions could rub a man raw and threaten to emasculate him.
    At least it gave him a good account of Lorenzo di Fiore’s sincerity. The man had just said that David had done well despite losing his limbs, and had gone on about the wonders of technology. Now he was asking whether David could climb stairs. Apparently, di Fiore’s “done well” had been little more than stroking David on, a bit of flattery and condescension toward a man he thought not truly capable.
    David took his time climbing the stairs—why not, at this point?—breathing deep, pushing away his resentment. His father had possessed a talent for saying exactly what a man needed to hear, and David thought of that now. More than once, he’d reminded David that a man wasn’t made by what happened to him, but how he responded to those events.
    Anger wouldn’t serve him now. Explaining rarely did, either;