A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick Read Free Book Online Page A

city she had ever been to, and Mrs. Larsen served it with a
     simplicity and finesse that surprised and pleased her. She had thought she wasn’t hungry, but she ate everything, including
     a dessert made of light meringues floating in glistening, silky custard.
    The beautiful plates came and went, the utensils were used until none were left, and finally, Mrs. Larsen stood in the kitchen
     doorway and they both listened to the clumping of Larsen’s boots as Truitt and Larsen walked back and forth, back and forth
     in an upstairs bedroom, first across a rug and then on the floor and then back to the rug.
    “That was a fine dinner.”
    “Well, I’d hoped for more of a celebration, but . . .”
    The footsteps continued.
    “But there’ll be other nights, I guess. Miss?”
    “Yes?”
    “I hope you’ll be happy here. I truly do. It wasn’t much of a welcome, but I do, we do, welcome you.”
    Catherine blushed, embarrassed. “You’re a wonderful cook.”
    “Some people have one gift, some another.” She made rough sewing gestures with her hands. “Me, I was always a mess with a
     needle. But put me in a kitchen, I know where I am. Even after a long while, and it’s been a while, I know what to do.”
    Catherine stood, and they stared awkwardly at each other. Catherine was suddenly exhausted. She looked at the ceiling, the
     clodding boots.
    “Will they be all right?”
    “Larsen’ll look after him. They’ve known each other since they were boys. Truitt’s safe enough.”
    Mrs. Larsen began to clear away the dishes.
    “I’ll help you. I’m used to keeping myself.”
    “You should rest. Go to bed if you want.”
    “Where do I . . .”
    “Sleep? I’ll show you.” Wiping her hands on a dishtowel, then licking her fingers to put out the sputtering candles, extinguishing
     the sparkle on the silver, she led Catherine out of the dining room, picked up her case and started up the stairs. “It’s a
     nice room. You can see the river, and you can see over to the little house where Larsen and I live.”
    She opened the door to a graceful bedroom, the simple bed laid with good linens, the tester of the delicate four-poster hung
     with lace.
    She put the suitcase on the bed, went to the dressing table and poured water from a pitcher into a porcelain bowl. She went
     to the bathroom and brought back a beautiful cut crystal glass of cold water, which she set neatly by the bed.
    “The facilities is down the hall. Indoors. First in the county. I’ve tried to make it nice. I know you come from the city.”
    “Nothing so grand.”
    “You’d be surprised the number of people don’t know the first thing about how to use all those forks. You can tell the places
     a person’s been by the way he eats. You’ve been some fancy places.”
    Mrs. Larsen left her. Catherine unpacked her things, hanging her pathetic, ugly dresses in the small closet, laying away her
     underclothes in a bureau. This would be home, she thought. These are my things and I am putting them away in my new home.
     The last thing in her suitcase was a small blue medicine bottle, and she sat for a long time in a chair by the window looking
     at it, before she put it back in a silk pocket inside the suitcase and slid the whole thing under the bed.
    She opened the heavy curtains and immediately felt the pressing cold of the air outside. Tired as she was, it was a pleasant
     sensation, bracing, reminding her of her own flesh. The few lights from the house lit up the constant swirl of the snow outside.
     She sat in a small blue velvet chair and watched the storm, and drifted in and out of a light sleep accompanied by the clumping
     of Larsen’s boots in the room next door. Her own life was like that of a stranger to her.
    Finally, the footsteps stopped. She waited until the house was completely quiet, and then she stood, and stepped out of her
     ruined skirt, undid the thirteen buttons of her awful dress. She could smell the hard iron smell of Truitt’s