As To Be Written In Prose (Temporary); An Imagined Companion To Dicken's "A Christmas Carol"
an excerpt

“Tim.” Martha sobbed as she saw the crown of blond hair appear in the doorway. “Tim!” she wailed, holding out her arms and hanging her head, letting the waterfall of chestnut curls fall across the pink cloth of her dress.

“Martha?” he whispered, the name coming out more of a question than a statement. He picked up his sorry excuse for a crutch and hobbled toward her, the burden of such a task evident on his face, which only made her cry harder.

He wished badly, oh so badly to be tall enough and smart enough and old enough to be able to hold her and rock her back and forth whispering “Poor baby. Poor, poor Martha. It’s okay, Mar, go ahead and cry.” as she had done to him so many times before.

But he was the younger sibling and she the elder and for that reason alone he had to stumble to the floor and allow himself to sink into the soft, nice smelling folds of her dress without an ounce of remorse. Martha Crachit had always found comfort in herself by comforting others.

“Tim.” She sobbed once again, holding him close to her and burying her face in his hair. Her tears traveled among the yellow strands and transferred to Tim’s own face, though he could not deny that some of the droplets of salt water were his and his alone.

“Forgive me, Tim, for I have sinned.” She whispered, tripping over her own words. “Forgive me, gentle child, for I have gone against the way of our Lord.”
She had always confessed to him. Never to Mother, never Da or Father McLaughlin or Peter or Belinda or (heaven forbid) Claudia. Always to him. As though he, tiny Tim, in his small and crippled state, could bring her confession to the Good Lord quicker than any holy man could.
“What have you done, Mar?” he uttered, wriggling about to look at her, wincing as his bad leg twisted the wrong way.

“I have gone somewhere I am not suppose to go.” She tried to smile, tried to give him some form of twisted comfort, but the expectant look on his face only brought more tears to her eyes.

“Did you go to the…” he looked around, his blue eyes wide with alertness. “Pub?” he attempted to reduce to wretched word with his voice alone but the massive weight the syllables held were too much for his weak-speaking manner.

“No, Tim.” She gave him a pitying glance and held him tighter, as though the things she confessed to him might rip her precious brother away from her. “Somewhere worse.” Tim simply stared, disbelief shining from his irises.
In his mind, no where was worse than the pub, where the drunken men laughed at him and attempted, time after time, to stick a foul smelling shoe out to trip his crutch and send him sprawling across the side walk. They had only succeeded once and that was so Martha and Belinda could run ahead while Peter helped him up. Tim hadn’t liked the way some of the less-than-sober men had been eyeing his sisters.

“Martha.” Tim’s father walked into the room. The scene before him must have struck some kind of chord in his heart, because he did not speak for a long time. He simply observed as his perfect, brunette daughter cradled his crippled, sickly blonde son with the tenderness only a sister can show. “Martha, we have some discussing to do about your latest….employment.” Martha nodded solemnly, gently untangling Tim’s thin, wiry body from her own and setting him gently against the wall like some kind of china doll she was afraid to touch. With the state he was in, he might as well have been