'Why do you write, Father?', Eve asks her father, wonder gleaming in stars from her glasses' reflection of her father's desk lamp.
'Where has this come from, Darling? I didn't think you liked books.' Mark responds, taken aback by his daughter's sudden intrigue.
'I don't, Father, but I wondered why you do.' She calmly replies, arms closed behind her, leaning closer to her father's penciled paper - tarnished with swarms of dashes. 'You don't look happy when you write, Father.' She continues, her voice now mellow with concern.
Mark adjusts his seat to speak with his daughter eye to eye, attempting to shrink himself to something less harsh than a man scratching a needle tipped with ink across a dead tree. He closes his eyes, searching within his aged mind for a satisfying answer for one desiring for words that decide her beliefs are facts. Exhaling doubt of his answer's effectiveness, Mark opens his eyes and begins to give Eve the answer she asked for.
'Eve...' Mark starts, his hand resting on Eve's tulip dressed shoulder.
'Yes, Father.' Her flowery voice assures her father of his holding of her attention.
'Imagine a world,' her father continues with a voice as smooth as a painter's stroke, 'where Mother can stay at home with us,...