Free Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson Page B

normally. Just as Father said long ago, although by that time he wouldn’t meet my eyes:
You’re lucky, Ana. People will pay to see you and you don’t have to do a damned thing
.
    Suddenly these small people, this typically sized room, these things mattered. Not to me personally, perhaps, but they mattered because this is where life had delivered me, and from this point I must function. This woman’s husband was paying me more than anyone ever had. Paying me to be here and show myself. In two weeks I would send the money home to Father. Maybe he would visit me. Perhaps I’d have a place with a carpet, with a bookcase full of books.
    Finally the two of them cocked their heads toward the back room, toward a child’s high voice. “Who is it, Mama? Caroline, who’s there?”
    Both of them jumped up. Caroline went to her sister.
    “She has a fever … I don’t know. We’ll leave this place very, very soon. The draftiness, you know. It’s not right. It’s very bad for us. For the girls.”
    “I hope she recovers soon.” Small talk doesn’t suit me. “When will your husband return?” If I could get that information from the woman the visit would be worthwhile.
    Mrs. Barnum did not take well to this question, either; she rose and turned on one small heel. “Soon, very, very soon … I’m sorry, Miss Swift, this … 
place
is wearing on mynerves.” She offered me a pained expression as she raised her hand toward the door.
    “No apology is necessary,” I said. I arose, not without dramatic intentions, I’m afraid. I towered above her. “I won’t keep you any longer.”
    Mrs. Barnum could not manage more than a short nod as she ushered me out.
    But as I stood at the bleak window of my room, contemplating the bricks of the neighboring building and the small injustice at having no control over whose lives adjoined my own, I heard children’s footsteps in the hall. I was not surprised when they stopped outside my door. After all, I hadn’t said good-bye to Caroline.
    “Miss Swift, are you in there?” Caroline chose to announce herself not by knocking but whisper-shouting at the closed door.
    “Come in if you’d like.”
    The girl peeped in, still with the absurd silk bow flopping over her forehead. A good round face. And then another little face below hers, this one pale with tiny gray crescents under its eyes and tight curls bobbing up.
    “This is Helen.”
    “Would you like to come in?” Momentarily shy, Caroline nudged her sister. Helen walked a little unsteadily, a four-year-old in a high-collared nightgown and woolen socks. Caroline followed.
    Helen came close. “I didn’t get to meet you.”
    “Here’s our chance.”
    “We didn’t have any proper visitors up here,” Caroline said. “Until all of you began to arrive. We
adore
visitors.” Caroline had appropriated a sophisticate’s manner of speaking and aped it perfectly. It was not difficult to imagine her picking it up from Mrs. Barnum, although it was quite impossible to imagine the children’s dour mother
adoring
anything. “But where are the rest of your things?”
    “These are all my things.”
    “Five crates and a bag?” Caroline pointed at them.
    “Yes.”
    Caroline strolled to the foot of the bed.
    “It broke,” I admitted.
    “Yes. And these crates are making it crooked. What is this?” She read the labels on the crates. “Cocadiel.”
    “Medicine.” I showed her the bottle.
    “Are you sick?” Caroline looked at me skeptically.
    “I’m sick,” Helen confided.
    “No, just prone to aches and pains.” I smiled at the understatement.
    The girls perched together on the chair, with Helen looking up at me with glassy eyes. They let out little oohs and snorts of delight as I pulled my things from the crates to show them. Gabardine skirts and a crinoline they could make into a tent. They hid behind my spoonbusk corset. Helen reached for my leather gloves. She held one in both her hands before fitting it on her head