Page 87

I shook my head to clear it, then sat to read the cards in the sunless kitchen that didn't look so c

heerful without all the lights on. I'd been warned to use the lights as little as possible when I was home alone, and never was Ito look at TV unless either Kitty or Cal was looking too.

The lists of what to do and not to do filled four cards.

DO'S

1. Every day, after every meal, wipe up the countertops, scrub the sinks.

2. After every meal, use another sponge to wipe off the refrigerator door, and keep everything inside neat and tidy, and check the meat and vegetable compartments to see nothing is rotten, or needing to be thrown out. It's up to you to see everything is used before it goes bad.

3. Use the dishwasher.

4. Grind up the soft garbage in the disposal, and never forget to turn on the cold water when it's running.

5. Washed dishes are to be removed

immediately, put in cupboards in exact placement. Never stack cups one inside the other.

6. Silverware is to be neatly arranged in trays for forks, knives, spoons, not tossed in the drawer in a heap.

7. Clothes have to be sorted before washing. All whites with whites. Darks with darks. My lingerie goes in a mesh bag--use gentle cycle. My washable clothes, use cold water, and cold water soap. Wash Cal's socks by themselves. Wash sheets, pillowcases, and towels by themselves. Your clothes wash last, by themselves.

8. Dry clothes as instructed on the dryer I showed you how to use.

9. Hang clothes in closets. Mine in mine, Cal's in his. Yours in the broom closet. Fold underwear and put in correct drawers. Fold sheets and cases like what you find in the linen closet. Keep everything neat.

10. Every day wipe up kitchen and baths with warm water containing disinfectant.

11. Once a week, scrub kitchen floor with liquid cleanser I showed you, and once a month remove buildup of wax, then reapply wax. Once a week, scrub bathroom floors, clean grout in shower stall. Scrub out tub after every bath you take, I take, and Cal takes.

12. Every other day run the vacuum over all the carpets in the house. Move the furniture aside once a week and sweep under everything. Check under chairs and tables for spiders and webs.

13.Dust everything, every day. Pick things up.

14. First thing after Cal and me are gone, clean up the kitchen. Make the bed with clean linens, change towels in bathrooms.

The cards fell from my hand. I sat on, stunned. Kitty didn't want a daughter, she wanted a slave! And I'd been so ready to do anything to please her if only she'd love me, and be like a mother. It wasn't fair for fate to always rob me of a mother just when I thought I had one.

Hot, bitter tears coursed down my cheeks as I realized the futility of my dream of winning Kitty's love. How could I live here or anywhere without someone who loved me? I brushed at my tears, tried to stop them, but they came, like a river undammed. Just to have someone who needed me, who really loved me enough to be caring, was that too much to ask? If Kitty could only be a real mother, gladly I'd do everything on her list, and more--but she was making demands, issuing orders, making me feel used without consideration. Never saying please, or would you?-- even Sarah had been more considerate than that.

So I sat on, doing nothing, feeling more betrayed by the moment. Pa must have known what Kitty was, and he'd sold me to her, without heart, without kindness, forever punishing me for what I couldn't help or undo.

Bitterness dried my tears. I'd stay only until I could run, and Kitty'd rue the day she took me in to do more work in one day than Sarah had done in a month!

Ten times more work here than in the cabin, despite all the cleaning equipment. Feeling strange, weak, I stared at the cards lying on the table, forgetting to read the last one, and when I tried to find it later on, I couldn't.

I'd ask Cal, who seemed to like me, what Kitty could have written on that last card. For if I didn't know what not to do, ten to one I'd be sure to do it, and Kitty would somehow know.

For a while I just sat on in the kitchen, everything clean and bright around me, while my heart ached for an old rickety cabin, dim and dirty, for familiar smells and all the beauty of the outside world. No friendly cats here to rub against my legs, or big dogs that wagged furious tails to show how mean they were. Only ceramic animals of unnatural colors holding kitchen utensils, cat faces grinning from the wall, pink ducks parading toward an unseen pool. Dizzy, that's how I felt from seeing so many colors against all the white.

When next I glanced at a clock, I jumped up. Where had the time gone? I began to race around-- how to finish before Kitty was home again? Those panicky butterflies were on wing again, battering my self-confidence. I'd never be able to please Kitty, not in a million years. There was something dark and treacherous in Kitty, something slippery and ugly hidden beneath all those wide smiles, lurking in those seawater eyes.

Thoughts of my life as it had been came like ghosts to haunt me--Logan, Tom, Keith, Our Jane . . . and Fanny--are they treating you like this, are they?

I vacuumed, dusted, went carefully from plant to plant and felt the dirt, all damp. I returned to the

kitchen to try and begin the evening meal, which Kitty said should be called dinner because Cal insisted the main meal of the day was dinner and not