Awake Unto Me (9 page)

A young woman in a white dress and cap came over. “Doctor?”

“Take this young lady to my office. Make her comfortable, and give her tea or lemon water. Whatever she wishes.” He turned back to Kerry and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be with you presently. I have to finish rounds. Please make yourself comfortable.” His smile was kind and the knot in Kerry’s chest eased a bit. “The fact that you’re here tells me something has happened to Jack.”

Kerry nodded dumbly and then walked off with Nurse Brett, who gave her curious, sidelong looks. They arrived at a cramped office and Kerry sat down on the straight-back wooden chair. Nurse Brett asked, without a trace of sympathy, “Do you need anything?”

“No, nothing, I’m fine. Thank you.”

The last forty-eight hours had been terribly disorienting. She wanted to be alone until the doctor came back. His presence and manner reassured her even if her memory of him was imperfect.

She fidgeted and looked around. She’d lived her entire life on the Barbary Coast except for her and Teddy’s forays into other areas of the city nearby. She was as unfamiliar with an office as she would be with a king’s palace. In spite of the hard chair, she fell asleep, her dreams tortured by the image of Jack in the morgue.

Addison shook her shoulder gently. She sat up, blinking and confused.

“We’ll be going now. Is that all you have with you?” He pointed to the small suitcase.

Kerry nodded, somehow embarrassed. On the carriage ride home, she told Addison about Jack, leaving out the unnecessary and sordid details of Sally’s involvement. Addison listened without comment.

Then he put his arm around Kerry and said, “I always feared Jack would come to an untimely end. He asked me if anything ever happened to him if he could send you to me. You will reside with us as long as you like. Even if Jack hadn’t entertained and enriched me, I owe him my life.” He told her about the card game and the ruffian who wanted to murder them both.

Kerry 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 though she had been transported to another planet.

It wasn’t as though she wasn’t grateful to Dr. Grant. She understood he was kind and well meaning and had had great regard for her father. When she showed him the bankbook, he was very serious.

“He has left you a bit of money. I hope you’ll be able to put it to good use. But we’ll have to teach you numbers as well as letters.”

“I could take it and go live somewhere else, couldn’t I?”

“Tut. Don’t speak of that. You’re only fifteen and…you aren’t recovered from Jack’s death. You need some time.” He’d finished somewhat lamely.

“I guess I have plenty of time,” Kerry said, refusing to let the tears fall as she stared past Addison at the trees outside.

“I promise, the pain will ease eventually, Kerry, and I think you’ll learn to like it here, if you give it, us, a chance.”

“I don’t think your wife likes me, Addison,” Kerry said bluntly, staring at him. “She looks at me like I’m something off her shoe.”

“No, no, Kerry, nothing like that. She just doesn’t like surprises, that’s all. When she gets to know you, I’m sure you’ll be the greatest of friends.”

“I don’t have friends, but Jack trusted you and thought this is where I should go, so I’ll stay, at least till I figure out what else to do. Deal?”

Addison blinked, obviously unused to a young woman being so forthright. “Yes, we have a deal, Kerry. Just promise me you’ll be patient.” He smiled, patted her knee, and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Sighing, Kerry curled on her side and finally cried. Would her Barbary Coast tears stain the pure white linen under her cheek? As she fell asleep, she wondered if Laura would be able to accept her.
I guess I can go back to the Barbary if it comes to that.

“I can’t do a thing with her. I took her to a dressmaker and had her fitted. She spent all of one hour in the dress and then changed back into trousers, saying the dress tripped her. She demanded I take her to a barber to get her hair cut! When I refused, she tried to cut it herself so that I was forced to give in. Her language is disgraceful. She is like a cat that’s spent his life outside and is now shut up in the house. She will
not
listen to me.” Laura paced the length of the living room, punctuating her frustration with dramatic flourishes.

“Laura, darling, I would hope you could open your heart and your mind. She’s an orphan with no place to go. Think of it as an opportunity. She needs the help of a woman like you.”

“She grew up in a whorehouse, Addison, with a criminal for a father. I fear it’s too late to do anything with her. Mark my words, you’ll regret this charitable impulse of yours, when she disappears one day with my mother’s silver.”

“I don’t believe that will happen. Please try to be patient, my dear. She’ll come around eventually. It’s just that her background is so out of your experience. Try to give her time to adjust.”

Addison gave Laura his best smile and patted her shoulder. Laura simply pursed her mouth, turned on her heel, and left the room. He hoped things would settle down eventually. Laura wasn’t worldly. She’d grown up in a genteel home in Kansas City and they’d met when her father had come to San Francisco for a medical meeting and brought his family along to see the “Paris of the West.”

Addison knew the San Franciscans had made up the concept purely to feed their own civic pride, but Laura embraced it wholeheartedly and had indeed convinced her skeptical parents that San Francisco and Addison were her destiny. San Francisco, Addison thought, just as Jack had told him long before, was really the wildest of the Wild West. Laura would never know anything of that, of course. She was, Addison realized, being exposed through Kerry to a side of San Francisco she had no idea existed. Addison hoped she would come to accept Kerry and that Kerry would, in time, become more civilized.

*

After she left Addison, Laura went to the kitchen, feeling put upon and misunderstood. Everything about Kerry was contrary to her experience, her upbringing, and her wishes. Addison was trying to smooth matters over, but he seemed to have no appreciation for the position he’d put her in.

He’d said, “She’ll come to see your way eventually after she’s settled in. She’ll notice other respectable young women and will want to attract the attentions of a young man. She’ll want to emulate you and listen to your counsel.”

Laura sighed and figured she might as well give in on the matter of Kerry’s clothes and appearance. She only hoped it wouldn’t prove embarrassing to Addison.

She started chopping vegetables for their dinner stew and sensed someone behind her. It was Kerry, standing in the door of the kitchen, shyly and quietly. She was clad as usual in boots, rough wool trousers, and a collarless shirt. Mindful of Addison’s admonition to be patient, Laura didn’t remark on Kerry’s appearance, although every time she saw her she felt like gnashing her teeth.

Much to Laura’s astonishment, Kerry said, “May I help you?” She smiled shyly, and that tiny smile made Laura’s tension ease slightly.

“Of course you may. I’d welcome that.” They spent a relatively pleasant few hours making the stew and a couple of loaves of bread. Laura was charmed by Kerry’s attentiveness and serious questions, and, for a while, the awkwardness and hostility disappeared as they worked together.

After that day, it became a habit for Kerry to join Laura in the kitchen every day, and she quickly mastered basic cooking skills. Laura, not content to have reached a
détente
and to have acquired a very competent kitchen helper, still couldn’t quite keep her feelings under control.

One afternoon, a couple of months after her talk with Addison, they were working together on several pies that Laura had agreed to make for the church social. Laura was pleased that Kerry was so willing help cook, but it irritated her that when it came to all other female accomplishments and skills, Kerry wholeheartedly resisted Laura’s attempts to teach her.

“You’re becoming quite a cook. It’s an art all women must master. Someday you’ll be married and cooking for yourself and your husband. It’s a shame you don’t take to the other homemaking arts as well.”

Kerry looked up from the pie crust she was carefully shaping and scoring. “I’m not getting married,” she said flatly. Her eyes had darkened and her brows furrowed.

“Oh, but of course you will,” Laura said lightly, feeling her temper rise.

“No. I will not.”

“Young lady.” Laura faced her, infuriated. “If you think we’re going to look after you for the rest of your life, you’re sadly mistaken. Although,” she gave Kerry a scathing up-and-down look, “I can’t think what man would have you.”

Kerry threw her fork down, untied her apron, strode out the kitchen door, and started upstairs to her room. Laura went after her and stood at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the newel post, her chest heaving.

Several months of repressed anger surfaced and she let it have free rein. “You come back here this instant, you little guttersnipe. I’m speaking to you and you will listen. You’re a disgrace. You’re disgusting. It’s only because of my husband that you’re even in this house.” She ran up the stairs and into Kerry’s room and began wildly slapping Kerry’s head, face, and shoulders. Laura grabbed Kerry’s arm to keep her still but Kerry slipped away easily. As angry as she was, Laura knew she was no match physically for the wiry adolescent. She screamed, “I’ll have you gone or I’ll know the reason why. Don’t think you can always run to Addison.”