Manroot by Anne J. Steinberg Page B

answered, and went on unloading the bags, her disappointment visible in her slumped shoulders.
    Frieda fingered t he crisp envelope in her pocket; she felt a well of protectiveness rising. She longed with all her heart to take the note and rip it to shreds, saving the girl the eventual heartbreak. She knew about men like the Judge. She had been young once – she remembered how selfish they were in taking their pleasure, and how soon it was forgotten. She reached up and touched the cameo earrings: they were all she had left.
    Gathering her nerve, hope like a live flame in her eyes, Katherine finally asked, “ Did he leave anything for me?”
    Frieda retorted, crisp and angry, “ What’d you expect – a ten-dollar bill?”
    “ Oh no,” Katherine protested. “It wasn’t like that.”
    Wearily, Frieda knew it was pointless; she would love and hope like every young girl before her. Reaching in her pocket, she handed her the note that he had left.
    Katherine grabbed the envelope and hugged it to her chest. “Oh, thank you.”
    Freda ’s face turned red and angry. “If you insist on going to his bed like a cat in heat, at least protect yourself, or you’ll be putting a brat in the orphanage in St. Louis, like I did!”
    “ What?” Katherine asked in a shocked voice. “What did you say?”
    Frieda ignored the girl ’s question. She went to the kitchen drawer, pulled out a sponge, and with the poultry shears cut out a square. “Now mind you, girl, put this up there, as far as you can reach when you’re with him, and don’t take it out till he’s gone.”
    Katherine shrunk from her and he r gift. “What did you say?”
    Frieda began weeping; she let herself down heavily in a kitchen chair, covered her face with her apron and began sobbing for Anna. She had killed the myth; she could never find comfort in the stories again. Tears flowed as she called her daughter’s name, over and over, as if someone was there who would answer. She seemed to hear the baby’s high-pitched cries when she had taken her in the vegetable basket and laid her on the orphanage steps. The pain now was as real and fresh as it had been that day.
    Katherine forgot her rough words in the horror of the revelation; timidly, she patted Frieda ’s shoulder. It was the first time the woman had allowed herself to be touched.
    Between sobs she tried to justify her sin. “Women alone like us, there ain’t no way we can raise a bastard child…no way.”
    Katherine felt afraid; she looked at the white envelope with terror. Perhaps it did contain a ten-dollar bill, or goodbye. Frieda’s words had created anguish in her heart. She could not open the note now; she would read it later. She put it on the dresser, promising herself she would read it tonight. But the letter lying there appeared ominous. She delayed. She would read it in the morning. It stayed there unread for days. In her daydreams, her dreams at night, her imagination composed terrible messages of degradation and dismissal. The letter lay there unread for six whole days. When Friday arrived, Mr. Taylor told her that hereafter this was to be her day off. That knowledge gave her courage and she ripped the envelope open. It contained only three words. ‘See you Friday.’ It was signed ‘W.’
    On Friday she bathed and bathed; by three o ’clock Mr. Taylor complained that something was wrong with the water-heater. He sent for a repair man from St. Louis, as hot water was needed for the guests. She did not share with them the information that she had taken six baths.
    She had starched the white dress she had worn when she first came to Castlewood. From the heart-box she found a length of orchid ribbon and tied it around her waist. With trembling hands she fastened the imitation pearls around her throat, and combed her hair loose; it billowed around her face like a complementary frame. Three o’clock found her dressed and sitting stiffly on her bed, waiting. Her heart beat wildly. Though