The squeeze of his hand felt encouraging, so he was inclined to be optimistic when she took a breath and started. His immediate thought on the first condition was that there was a great deal of leeway built into the word completely — but he oughtn't to be going into this already thinking of loopholes, and honestly Zelda was right on this. He'd gotten drunk that winter and sent Jo a letter he didn't remember the contents of, and she'd written back about tattoos and I miss you, too; clearly the two of them drinking together wouldn't have been a good idea. (Clearly him being drunk around her wouldn't have been a good idea — perhaps Jo could hold her liquor or her words better than he could). So the first condition wasn't exactly easy, but it was also something he could agree to in good faith, because Zelda was right.
The second condition was just easy. Alfred traveled on such a predictable cadence, since he'd started work at the Sanditon, so it wasn't as though it was likely to come up often. If he did run into Jo or make any plans to meet up with her while he was abroad, telling Zelda about it was a pretty low bar to clear. He'd done that this winter, even though everything had been stilted and awkward; he could keep Zelda in the loop on their out-of-country interactions without much hassle. He wasn't sure what it implied that Zelda thought this merited becoming a codified rule, though — what, exactly, did she think was likely to happen if he was interacting with Jo abroad that wouldn't have happened here in England?
The last condition was the one that brought him up short. He wasn't Ilona's father — Ilona, presumably, being the name of Jo's daughter; he still had never been told. Zelda didn't need to tell him this, but she'd felt the need to say it. Alfred's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, with a frown. "Acting like...?"
The second condition was just easy. Alfred traveled on such a predictable cadence, since he'd started work at the Sanditon, so it wasn't as though it was likely to come up often. If he did run into Jo or make any plans to meet up with her while he was abroad, telling Zelda about it was a pretty low bar to clear. He'd done that this winter, even though everything had been stilted and awkward; he could keep Zelda in the loop on their out-of-country interactions without much hassle. He wasn't sure what it implied that Zelda thought this merited becoming a codified rule, though — what, exactly, did she think was likely to happen if he was interacting with Jo abroad that wouldn't have happened here in England?
The last condition was the one that brought him up short. He wasn't Ilona's father — Ilona, presumably, being the name of Jo's daughter; he still had never been told. Zelda didn't need to tell him this, but she'd felt the need to say it. Alfred's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?" he asked, with a frown. "Acting like...?"
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER