"Where've you been?" snapped Aida as Kay pulled the truck into the garage. Kay noted the usual look of reproach plastered to her sister's face. Aida's worn-out expression was always accompanied by a stern lecture; Kay watched as her sister took in a very deep breath. Here it comes, Kay thought. "If you needed to get something from town, you should have at least taken Carmen with you! For goodness sake, Kay, if you'd been gone any longer Father surely would have shut down the entire town until you reappeared!"
"You worry too much," Kay said, rather dismissively, stepping on her skirt as she climbed out of the truck and tumbled to the ground with all the grace of a Vaudevillian comedy act. Aida sighed wearily as she hooked an arm under her sister's and helped her to standing, brushing dirt from Kay's front while continuing with her verbal lashing. Kay wasn't paying attention to any of it. She was thinking of that strange man from the store, wondering where he'd come from and if she'd see him again. Well, if he worked at the train station, it was likely she...
"Are you listening to me?" Aida interrupted Kay's daydreaming. Kay looked over at her sister, coming out of her reverie while blinking a few times. Oops. It was so easy to get lost in thought. "Oh, never mind," grumbled Aida. "It's almost three and Father will want you in the kitchen soon enough. Worry about putting the feed away later; let's go."
Kay felt herself being dragged along by Aida, though she wasn't doing it to be cruel. Kay had come to accept her eldest sister as her caretaker, even if Kay was 19 years old now. Maybe she still needed the extra push to get things done, or maybe she just liked Aida's maternal nature. She certainly looked like a mother at times, dressing in a muted, mature color palette and fighting the growing trends of looser waists and shorter hem lengths. She kept her long, dark hair tied up tightly, and she had this crazy love of knit shawls that Kay thought aged her well beyond her 32 years.
Kay tried to keep up with Aida, but her earlier encounter was plaguing her mind. "Have you met that new man? The one that works at the station?"
Aida kept moving along briskly, holding Kay by the upper arm. "Who?" she asked without turning around.
"Rufus... Under... something. Hill? I don't remember. Does Rufus ring a bell? He's surely the only one by that name in town."
"No, he doesn't sound familiar. Not by name, anyway. Would you pick up your feet, please?"
Kay ignored her sister's request, but not on purpose. "I think he only has one arm. It was hard to tell with his coat on, but he only used one arm, anyway."
Finally Aida stopped and turned to her sister, midway between the main estate and the sheds. "You met a one-armed man named Rufus?" she puzzled.
"I think so."
Aida wearily shook her head. "You 'think so'? Oh, Kay, what are we going to do with you? You have the worst memory ever, you wander off without letting anyone know where you're going, and you wind up bumping into a cast of characters that could fill a Keystone picture!"
Kay pouted. "It's better than rotting here."
Aida sighed again and put her hands on Kay's cheeks, changing her expression to one of loving concern. "I only worry because of what Father would do."
Kay lowered her eyes and mumbled, "He stays locked in his office all day long, only to come out when he wants something from us."
"Nevertheless," countered Aida, "if he found out you go into town as much as you do..." Her voice trailed off as she tilted Kay's head up and made her sister look her in the eyes.
"I know," woefully replied Kay. "Then we'd never get out of here, probably. I'm sorry."
Aida couldn't stay mad at her sister, especially for wanting something better for herself than confinement to the estate. She bent over and kissed her sister on the forehead, then gestured for them to continue walking towards their home. "Now you're worrying too much. Nothing happened, after all, so let's not dwell on it anymore, all right?"
"Thank you," Kay exhaled, feeling remorseful over her lone trip into town. "I won't do it again, I promise."
Aida chuckled. "Oh, yes you will, and then we'll have this conversation again. I'm just sure of it. Oh well; at least you made a friend today, right?"
Kay followed her sister up the steps to the side entrance that led directly to the kitchen. She appeared doubtful. "Well... I don't know. He was nice to me, but I... I might have been a little standoffish."
Aida paused before opening the door, looked up at a second floor window and shook her head. "Oh, Daddy," she lamented. "Look what you've done to your little girls. We're all about as friendly and cuddly as cactus plants."
Kay tapped her sister on the shoulder and grinned wryly. "At least we know how to cook, right?"
Both sisters smiled at each other and laughed. "If we ever make it out of here," Aida giggled, "yes. At least we have some skills to make up for our lack of charm!" And with that, the two sisters, arm in arm and lost in fits of giggles, went inside to clean up and prepare supper.
The only thing pleasant about supper was the food. As usual, it was delicious. No matter which of the sisters had kitchen duty in the evening, the meal was always satisfying, though half the desire to excel at food preparation was to avoid disappointing their father. The other half was to have something to look forward to as the family gathered together in the dining room for an hour of unnerving silence. Most of the time it was so deathly quiet it was like being in a court room, with Judge Theodoric Frumoldus presiding. He was normally the only one to initiate any conversation at all, except for Aida's occasional bold attempts at pleasantries and chit-chat to liven the mood.
Poor Aida. No one could blame her for trying. She had firmly established herself as the role of Mistress of the estate, seemingly signed on to a life of servitude under her father in exchange for her sisters being allowed more freedom. Freedom, it seemed, that wasn't being issued to them after all. Now Aida was a mix of guilt and watchful protection as she tried to give her sisters opportunities to escape their father's control occasionally, tightening the strict confidence the sisters had between each other and willing to take the fall for any of their supposed transgressions. Though Aida was favored by her father, none of her sisters wished to be in her shoes.
After too many minutes filled only with the sounds of flatware clanging on plates, Aida finally put on a smile and looked up at her father, sitting across from her at the long table, who was eating while reading along in a giant tome resting on his end of the table. It was supposedly intimate family time, so Theo didn't care about table etiquette, at least not when it concerned him. Aida cleared her throat. At least two of the rest of her sisters—who flanked Aida and Theo, five on one side, six on the other—looked up, but her father remained fixed on his book.
"There seems to be no end to this cold snap, wouldn't you say, Father? I can't wait for spring; how about you?" asked Aida cheerfully.
The lull that followed her question made everyone else eat more quickly, causing more clanging, which was even more uncomfortable than the previous silence. Obviously Theo was not to be interrupted. More than a minute later he finally picked his head up and addressed Aida.
"You were saying?" he asked simply, as if it not much time at all had transpired since Aida originally spoke up. She stared at him with her jaw agape. Theo quickly put an end to her look of shock. "Aida," his voice rose, "keep your mouth closed unless you're going to answer my question." Aida clamped her jaw shut. Theo shook his head and went back to reading.
The oldest sister glanced at her plate of food and felt her appetite wither. She must have looked pitiful, as the second oldest, sitting to Aida's right, put a hand on her sister's shoulder and gave it a comforting rub. It's all right, the sister mouthed to Aida, who smiled weakly in return.
"Hildy!" Theo burst out suddenly, startling the entire table into performing little hops in their chairs and shifting glances at one another, especially at the sister who had been called out.
Hildy took her hand away from her sister. "Yes, Father?" she gulped.
"Why on Earth are you touching your sister at the table?"
Hildy felt an invisible spotlight on her as she looked around the table. "Reflex?" was her mousy reply.
"Reflex?" repeated Theo incredulously, letting out a grunt. "Control yourself. This isn't a saloon. Try living up to your namesake once in a while."
Hildy looked down, wondering how in the world she was supposed to live up to a Valkyrie. Was self-immolation in her future? That was a disgusting thought. Her name was actually quite awful, Hildy decided. "Yes, Father," she replied, diminished. She watched Theo once again return to his book, which she then eyed bitterly, feeling the contradiction of table manner standards between herself and her father.
Oh, how just about everyone at the table who wasn't Theo was ready for supper to conclude! He was eating so slowly due to that reading of his. Only one of the sisters, Lakmé, seemed not to care. She was stealthily pretending to play the piano under the table. Kay, sitting next to her, caught a glimpse and shook her head slightly at her sister's miming, amused at her look of bliss as she mouthed the words of a favorite tune, her golden ringlets swaying slightly as she moved her head side-to-side. Kay nudged her gently under the table as a reminder not to get too carried away with her piano pantomime.
The only person more lost in the clouds than Kay was her younger sister, but Kay decided daydreaming wasn't such a bad idea and began plotting her next town adventure as she idly stabbed a piece of steak and swirled it around in some of the melted butter that had collected in a pool next to her carrots. She could hear the ticking of the old porcelain clock sitting on one of the two buffet cabinets behind her, giving her a grim reminder that she was waiting out her time in such a stiff setting. Visiting the train station would be such fun, she thought. She should do something for Rufus. Maybe Frank, too, though that old man was such a gossipmonger she was sure her presence around him would likely become town legend or scandal, and that was a problem. Rufus, though, was different. He had a peculiar accent, almost foreign, maybe. Perhaps he was an immigrant? She thought a bit longer about what she could do for the two men, which conveniently filled the rest of suppertime.
After the dishes were cleaned and put away and Theo had gone back to his quarters for the night, the sisters convened in a secluded spot in the cellar, two floors down from their father. Plans were laid out, just as they had been the previous two nights. When everything had been settled and everyone was in agreement about their night activities, they left the cellar one or two of them at a time over several minutes. Back in their rooms they waited until ten o'clock, at which time Aida gave the signal. Within a few breathless minutes the estate was emptied of its female residents, who stole away down the road where several Fords waited for them.
For the third night in a row, Rufus, a light sleeper due in part to his time in the trenches, was awoken shortly after going to sleep by an odd procession of vehicles leaving town. He counted the cars; it was the same number as before, and Rufus wondered just how many more nights of this nocturnal caravaning he should expect. Perhaps it was time for him to wait out their return closer to the road, which happened the previous nights around three o'clock in the morning. Rufus was no busybody like Frank, but curiosity certainly was getting the better of him now.