Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss

do with holding in her stomach muscles and not breathing, clenching her fists and staring straight at the scene. By facing the terror this way, she was learning to conquer it.
    And so she tightened her stomach and stared at the Christmas tree with stern control. Just as the terror subsided, Lucinda entered the room. She wore a shimmery dark blue gown, the waist very narrow. Silvery blue lace frothed around her throat and at her wrists. She stepped into the room without a sound, her magnolia scent overpowering the aroma of the pine Christmas tree.
    The smell of magnolia set the terror churning again in Miranda's stomach, and she fought to ignore it. Lucinda walked over to the man and stood by his chair.
    "Sigmund." Her voice rang sharply in the warm stillness of the room.
    The man raised his eyes wearily and turned away from the flames to focus on her. "Yes, dear?"
    "Don't you Yes, dear' me!" She mimicked his belabored voice angrily.
    "What is it, Lucinda?"
    "You know perfectly well what it is! We haven't finished talking. How in the world am I to manage without the servants? I simply cannot! I won't have any time at all for my own pursuits."
    "Lucinda, you know I wouldn't have let them go if there were any way to keep them. But we don't need so many servants! We can't afford to pay them! You've still got Hannah to help with Dorothy, and there's Mrs. Bowen."
    "Bowen has quit! She left this afternoon when she heard that Mariette and Lizzie and Robert and Sam were all going."
    "I'm sorry, Lucinda. We'll see if we can afford another cook. But you're going to need to help out, you know, by taking an interest yourself."
    Lucinda hung on his arm. "I can help out much better than that, and you know it, Sigmund. I shall go out to work myself."
    "Nonsense! No wife of mine works outside the home! And what could you do? Work in a shop, I suppose?" His voice was lightly scornful.
    "Damnation! Sigmund, you
know
what I want to do. I've told you a hundred times I have no interest in housework or children—or shopkeeping! I want to be a lawyer, or else work in business."
    He laughed. "And I've told you a hundred times that your interests are unnatural. Women aren't lawyers, Lucinda. The gentler sex simply isn't fit for the courtroom. Nor do they work well in offices."
    "I don't know that
you're
so well fit for the courtroom yourself, Sigmund! If you'd only argued this last case the way I told you to, you wouldn't have lost!"
    "My dear." Now his voice was cold. "That I lost a case has nothing whatever to do with the issue at hand."
    "It does, Sigmund. It does!" Her beautiful face was suffused with scarlet. "I could have done a better job!"
    He laughed. "You could do a better job here, my love, if you would attend to your duties. Dorothy is your job. And running the house. We simply can't afford to have a pack of servants doing work that is rightfully yours. The Galworthy women have lived here for generations without maids stationed in every room. And they were perfectly content with their lot!"
    "They must have had brains of suet, but I certainly don't."
    "Lucinda, you are being childish." He picked up the newspaper and rustled it. "Now, please. Let us have an end to this interview."
    Lucinda whirled on him as swiftly as a cat. "If you loved me—no, not even that! If you were a decent man—you would see that I can't ever be happy like this. I told you before we married that I needed freedom. And you promised I'd have it! But I won't have any at all if we don't have servants."
    "You have a lot more freedom than most women!" He peered over his paper. "You can buy jewels and clothes. You go out to the theater, traveling ... Most women in town envy you. And they manage quite well with one or two maids. Now, please. You tire me with your whining."
    Lucinda clenched her hands in her skirts. "You're trying to keep me under your thumb! You think you own me! You try to stifle me, try to hold me down—but I won't let you. You can't keep