Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction by Vanessa Russell

purposefully interrupting her. “Well, a widow actually, but unmarried just the same.”
    We were nearing the end of the paved street; only a dirt road from there, the wagon tracks of carts and buggies indented like sunken railroad tracks. She would want to turn around soon. I hesitated and then practically exploded with the question, “Do you know a Mr. Jere Phillips?”
    “No, why?” she said, without a qualm.
    I stopped in my tracks, old anger once again flapping about my shoulders like tired wings. I felt extremely disappointed in her reaction. She had lied to me and that was unforgiveable. In studying her face, I saw no surprise or blush as expected - that was the least she could do in hearing her old lover’s name. How adulterous! I had never known her to lie before and now I wondered how many other lies had she told? How many of her fictitious stories had I believed in and followed? My life felt all the more wasted, groundless. I felt glad I’d said the word, “bitch”. Suddenly longing for something solid, I turned and walked the other way, snapping back at her over my shoulder, “I’m going back to visit with Papa!”
    Thus jumping from the kettle into the fire. Papa sat propped up in bed half dozing, looking so frail in his nightclothes that I longed to see him dressed in his usual three-piece brown suit. His supper tray to his side remained untouched, the radio droning on. The large cabinet of the radio replaced his bedside table so that he could reach the dials. His eyes opened upon hearing my greeting. I watched from the footboard as he struggled to sit up more attentively. Mamacame rushing into the room behind me and began rearranging his pillows.
He’s not a cripple,
I thought,
but Mama’s making him into one.
    The room had grown dark in the early evening so Mama pulled the overhead chain hanging from a bare light bulb, reminding me of their recent installation of electricity. They could afford such luxuries, plumbing included, when Papa sold his shoe store to my brother, Victor. He couldn’t deal with the business anymore, not since his heart attack, and he became weaker after word came that Jonathan had been killed in warring France. So much had changed here in their world and even the bright light in the room made me gloomier because of the shifting changes and his shadowed raccoon-like eyes.
    Papa cleared his throat. “Good evening, Bess. I understand you have much to be happy about.”
    I sat on the chair offered by Mama. As I expected, she wouldn’t meet my eyes, her expression looking as gloomy as I felt. “Yes, isn’t it wonderful? Women can now vote for their president!” I could pretend, too; I’d learned from the best. I smiled artificially at his pale sullen face.
    “Yes, women are taking over, I understand,” he said, turning down the radio’s volume, me noting the shoe-dye stains forever on his fingers. “It’s all in here.” He patted the cabinet as if it visibly held the evidence. “Your leader, Miss Alice Paul, is running for president.” He shook his finger at my raised eyebrows. “Don’t pretend you don’t know anything about it. She chained herself to the gate of the White House screaming for equal rights until President Wilson relented. He wants peace and a fair race. There’s not much time between now and November so of course she can’t possibly reach enough voters to win. But what could he do? She threatened not to eat until they put her name on the Republican ticket. There’s a large group of those women there now, pounding on the White House door, saying they’re coming in like witches from the night to clear out the cobwebs of Victorian thinking.” He waved his hand weakly as if seeing such a cobweb. “They want to be the president’s cabinet. Said they’ve worked long enough in the war factories making guns and aeroplanes and now they want to make laws.”
    He had slid down his pillows a bit and struggled to sit up more, leaning his head toward