Dot is one of my favorite accomplishments.  The character wasn’t in my original outline for Senta and the Steel Dragon.  She was created on the fly because Eamon Shrubb needed a wife.  Even so, I managed to come up with what I think a memorable character.  I think she is based a little bit on a woman I met twice many years ago, the wife of a coworker, who, like Dot, was a redhead and was deaf.

He arrived back at the police station office to find Dot Shrubb in a pretty pink dress that highlighted her copper-colored hair.  She was a thin, but pretty girl, of seventeen who had arrived in Port Dechantagne a year ago, without any family, and had stolen the heart of Eamon Shrubb the first time he laid eyes upon her.

“Saba,” she said, in the nasal voice of someone who has been deaf all their life.

“Looking for Eamon?” he asked, keeping his face toward her, so that she could read his lips.

She nodded.

“You two were fighting again.”

She punched the palm of her left hand with her right fist.

“What about?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then made a rocking baby motion with her arms folded.

“You’re expecting?”

“Huh?”

“Baby.  You’re going to have a baby?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Then why were you fighting?  Doesn’t he want a baby?”

“Name,” she said.

“Kafira,” Saba muttered.

At that moment, Eamon opened the office door.  He paused about halfway inside, looking at his wife the way a munitions expert looks at a bomb that didn’t go off as intended.  She looked at the floor.  After a moment, the constable stepped inside.

“You nesh berk,” said Saba.  Eamon looked at him in surprise.  “You take your wife home and see to her.  I may not have two and a half months experience being married, but even I know you don’t fight with a woman who’s expecting.”

“She wanted to name the baby Yadira.”

“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Saba.

“Come on!  That’s the worst name in the world.”

“My mother’s name,” said Dot.

“That happens to be my mother’s name, too,” said Saba.

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that,” said Eamon.

“It’s not like Eamon’s a brilliant name.”

“I don’t want to name it Eamon either.  If it’s a boy I want to name it Darsham, and if it’s a girl I want to name it Daria.”

“Darsham Shrubb?  Why don’t you just name it ‘kick my ass on the way to school’ and have done with it.”

Eamon ballooned his cheeks out and rolled his eyes back to think for a moment.  “It doesn’t sound that good when you put it all together, does it?”

“Here’s my advice, Mr. I’ve-been-married-two-and-a-half-months.  Take the rest of the day off and take your wife home.  Make her a cup of tea and rub her feet.  Then let her decide what to name the baby.  You can go get a kitten from Mrs. Gyffington, and name it Darsham, or Daria, or whatever the bloody hell you want to name it.”

“That’s right,” said Dot, taking Eamon by the arm.  Then she said, “Rub my feet,” leading Saba to believe that she had missed most of what he had said.

“You don’t mind if I take the afternoon?” asked Eamon.  He turned his head slightly, so that his lips were not visible to his wife.  “If I rub her feet, she’ll be all rumpy-pumpy.”

“Go!”

The two left the office, arm in arm.  As soon as they were gone, Saba stepped back through the supply room and into cell number one.  Setting his helmet beside the cot, he lay down and took a nap.