Baker, Kage - Katherine's Story

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Katherine's Story

by Kage Baker

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Fictionwise Contemporary

Science Fiction

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1937

She knew the marriage had been a mistake by the time they stepped off the train.

All the same, she smiled and waited obediently as Dick got their suitcases from the porter.

This was a pretty place, at least; big green mountains and trees, and the little train station

quite rustic if not exactly charming. Lean men in overalls, red clay thick on their workboots,

waited in a silent line as goods were unloaded: sacks of feed, sacks of fertilizer, wire cages

full of baby chicks. The chicks peeped and poked their tiny beaks through the mesh. The heat was

shimmering, sticky.

Dick approached with the luggage. She turned to smile at him but he was looking past her,

grinning and hefting one suitcase in a wave.

"Pop!"

One of the lean men was loading cages into the back of an old truck. He turned and saw

Dick, and nodded in acknowledgment. Dick ran toward him and she followed.

"Hey, Pop!"

"Hey," the man responded, looking them up and down. "You're early."

"I got the train times wrong," Dick said.

"Well, that's you." Mr. Loveland shook his head. His gaze moved briefly to Katherine. "This

the wife?"

"Yes -- "

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Loveland, I've heard so much about you," said Katherine, smiling

as she twisted the strap of her handbag. He just nodded, considering her.

"We got your room ready, anyways," he said.

"Oh, thank you -- "

"You may's well put those in the back," he told Dick, gesturing at the suitcases. Dick

stepped close and hoisted the suitcases into the truck bed. As he did so he kicked one of the wire

cages and there was a pitiable cheeping from the chicks inside.

"Oh, Dick, you've hurt one of them," Katherine cried, stooping down. "It's this black one,

look! I think his little foot is squashed. There's blood -- "

"Oh! Sorry -- "

"Things happen," said Mr. Loveland.

* * * *

The ride to their new home was silent and uncomfortable. Literally; she rode perched on Dick's

lap, which would have been funny and romantic under other circumstances. They bumped along unpaved

roads for miles, up into the mountains, far out of town, before turning down a gravel drive to a

frame house set back among trees. There was an enclosed screened porch running the length of the

front.

Katherine hopped out and waited, clutching her handbag, as the men unloaded the cages and

carried them around to the chicken pen in the side yard. Mr. Loveland remained with the chicks,

opening the cages and dumping their contents into the pen. Dick got their suitcases again and she

followed him into the silent house.

To her dismay, she saw two cots set up on the porch and an old chiffonier, clearly intended

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for them.

"Are we living out here?" she whispered.

Dick looked down at the cots. "Oh," he said. "I guess so. Well, it's hot, ain't it? We'll

be all right." He dropped the suitcases and pushed through the door into the house. She followed

him, wondering where she was going to put her things when they arrived.

"Ma!"

The kitchen was small and dark, and the woman kneading biscuit dough at the table filled it

effectively. She looked up at them. She had Dick's strong jaw. She did not smile as she said:

"Oh."

"Hey!" Dick edged forward and embraced her.

"You'll get your good clothes floured," Mrs. Loveland told him, looking over his shoulder

at Katherine. "You're Kathy, I guess."

"Yes, Mother Loveland, Katherine," she said, smiling and nodding. "I'm awfully glad to meet

you -- though I guess we're a little early. I hope that's not an inconvenience."

"_Katherine_, huh?" Mrs. Loveland looked coldly amused. "Now, that's funny. Dick told me

you were born in Chapel Hill, but you sure don't talk like it."

"Well, I was," Katherine stammered, "But I grew up in New York, you know. I studied at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, did Dick tell you?"

"No," said Mrs. Loveland.

* * * *

She was miserably homesick, through the weeks of Indian summer. Without his football sweater Dick

no longer looked much like Nelson Eddy; and he'd changed, as a son will change in his mother's

house. The other illusion, about coming home to the South and having a big, loving family instead

of living in boarding houses with Mother and Anne -- that was fading too.

She saw clearly enough that she'd better make Mrs. Loveland like her, but her attempts to

help out were dismissed -- she didn't know how to cook. She and Mother and Anne had eaten in

restaurants or heated Campbell's soup over Sterno cans in their rooms. She took on the task of

feeding the chicks, but her decision to make a pet of the crippled black one earned her contempt

even from Dick. She persisted; made it a separate pen, gave it special care, named it. It lived

and grew, to Mrs. Loveland's disgust.

Her things came, in far too many crates, and Dick and Mr. Loveland grumbled as they stacked

them in the barn. With them came the letter from Mother, and she cried as she read it. She could

hear the weary patient voice so clearly, she could see Mother looking up at her over her

spectacles, as term papers waited for grading.

_Beloved daughter,_

_I hope this finds you well and settling in. It may be difficult at first, as the life is

not one to which you are accustomed. "I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found

that life was Duty". Please believe, however, that I wish you happiness with all my heart._

_I have sent all your books, and some of the things from the Goldsborough house that you

loved, as well as the rest of your trousseau. If there is anything else you require, I will send

it along at the first opportunity as soon as you let me know what you lack._

_Your sister and I continue well. Anne is now understudy for the ingenue as well as in the

chorus. I had occasion to meet Kurt Weill, the composer, who was dining at the table next to mine.

His music is considered quite avant-garde but I found him to be a very nice little man, quite shy.

What I have heard of his work so far impresses me mightily._

_I must go now, but send sincerest wishes for your continuing joy, and the earnest hope

that you will find with Dick the domestic happiness for which I know you have always longed. It is

not given to all of us, but may it be given to you._

_Your loving_

_Mother_

So she couldn't write to Mother about how miserable she was, not without seeming like a

worthless failure, and worse; Mother would gloomily conclude that the shame and scandal of The

Divorce had rubbed off on her children after all.

She endured. Most of her clothing was inappropriate for daily life on a farm. Under Mrs.

Loveland's blank stare she was stupidly inept, burnt things while ironing them, broke things while

washing them.

The warm weather ended and it rained, and in the leaking barn her books got soaked. She

carried them into the house frantically, armloads spread and opened before the stove to dry,

weeping as she peeled back wet pages from the color plates: the _Child's Garden of Verses _with

its Maxfield Parrish illustrations, Kay Nielsen's _East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Myths and

Enchantment Tales, The Volland Mother Goose, Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare. _When Mrs. Loveland

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file:///C|/3278%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Kage%20Baker%20-%20Ka\therine's%20Story.txt======================Katherine'sStorybyKageBaker======================Copyright(c)2001byKageBakerFictionwiseContemporaryScienceFiction---------------------------------NOTICE:Thisworkiscopyrighted.Itislicen...

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