Free Awake Unto Me by Kathleen Knowles Page A

listened, smiling sadly at the scene she could picture so vividly. She closed her eyes tight against tears.
    “You must be still in shock. No matter. Just come home and rest. Laura will look after you.”
    “Laura?” Kerry asked, mystified. For some reason it hadn’t occurred to her Addison would have anyone else in his life.
    “My wife, Laura,” he said.
    Kerry felt a stab of unease and was quiet for the rest of their ride.
    Addison stopped in front of a large wooden house with tall bay windows. “Wait here. I have to stable the horses just down the street.”
    Kerry stood by the house with her bag, feeling more forlorn than ever.
    Addison strode back, then stopped in front of her and touched her shoulder briefly. “Just a moment, I’ll come out and fetch you.” He seemed a little nervous and it was several moments before he reappeared on the porch and said, “Kerry, please come in.”
    Kerry mounted the steps and walked past Addison into the entryway. A woman with blond hair pulled back into a severe bun stood at the foot of the stairs.
    “Laura. This is Kerry O’Shea, the daughter of an old friend. She’ll be staying with us for the time being. Kerry, my wife, Laura.”
    Kerry shook hands gravely with the pretty young woman before her. In the last few hours, I’ve met two women who aren’t whores, she thought with a kind of wonderment. I’m in a regular house in a quiet neighborhood . Adding that displacement to the emotional disjointedness she felt from Jack’s death, Kerry had to struggle to keep a sense of self. She gazed at Laura, who looked back at her doubtfully, as though she were some exotic animal for which Laura had no idea how to care. Maybe that was true.
    Addison, clearly conscious of having sprung a surprise on Laura, rubbed his hands together. “Here we are then. Laura, I think for tonight you can give Kerry her supper in the spare room. We won’t want to try her with too much company until she gets settled.” He went on to give more instructions to Laura regarding bed linen and night clothes and washing things.
    His anxious stream of orders embarrassed Kerry and clearly angered Laura, who stood rigidly nodding her assent at his instructions. But she nonetheless went swiftly about the tasks of “settling” Kerry.
    When Kerry was lodged in the guest room with the door closed, Laura and Addison sat down to dinner together, and Laura wasted no time speaking her mind. “Addison. I’m aware of your charitable impulses. But bringing someone home and with no warning?”
    “I do apologize, my dear Laura, for her unannounced appearance, but this is a special case.” Addison assumed his wife would go along without question with his ideas and whims and plans and opinions. Laura did so but reserved the right to direct the displeasure she couldn’t display to her husband in other directions. She wasn’t the least aware of her unconscious resentments. She was only thirty but in five years of marriage to Addison had acquired an irritable habit of pursing her lips when she was displeased and had succeeded in training her mouth to remain in that configuration. Addison pretended not to notice.
    “I made a promise to her father many years ago, and I won’t turn a young woman out on the street, regardless of her background. Thank you for being kind to her.”
    And with that, Addison closed the discussion of whether or not Kerry would be staying with them.
     
    *
     
    A few days later, Kerry sat in Addison’s study. “You can’t read?” Addison exclaimed. “Well. I’m sorry. Don’t be alarmed. I mean you no harm. I’m just surprised. I shall teach you, no matter. It won’t be difficult.” He had taken the letter from Kerry, surprised when she requested that he read it out loud because she liked hearing it, although she couldn’t read it herself.
    Kerry tried to relax in the spare room, where she lay in a bed far more comfortable and luxurious than any she had ever experienced. She felt as