When I heard my family stirring, I quickly tidied the kitchen to erase all the evidence that I’d been up and about for so many hours. My family was never happy with me it seemed, but they in their own way didn’t want evidence of how hard I worked while they slept. I placed the lid on the pot of their breakfast porridge slightly off center, so they could smell the cinnamon and cloves that steamed up from the oats. Then I put one thick log on the fire before hurrying to my room and shutting the door behind me, careful not to let the latch click too loudly.
Though they never said out-right that they preferred to wake up without my face being the first one they saw, I could tell as much from a look or a sigh. Although over the last year or so, my father had started being nicer to me than he ever had before. Well, not exactly nice.
Different. More attentive.
I’m sure most girls would have enjoyed the change in their fortunes, but I tried to avoid him even more. He had always looked after himself, first and foremost. And it made me wonder what it was that he wanted.
In my room, I brushed my hair as best I could, staring in the gloom into a small bowl of water from the well, as I always did, in an attempt to see myself. My mother and father refused to spend money on such frivolities as mirrors and looking glasses, not for me. Nobody would care to see me anyway; I had long since grown accustomed to acting and feeling like an invisible girl. The rest of my family had brown hair, but mine was jet black—my mother said it made me less pleasing to the eye than my sisters, and kept me out of sight whenever there was company.
My sisters, two now married off and one still at home, all had birthday suppers and I remembered them all, since I was the one that had made their special pastries and always cleaned up after the celebrations from an age far too young to handle such duties.
But as for me, I wasn’t even totally sure of my age. I thought I must be close to being nearly eighteen, though when I asked my parents simply grunted some irritation and sent me on my way.
I changed out of my shawl and night things into my plain homespun shift dress, a hand-me-down from my eldest sister. While Bridget, my one sister who still remained at home, was given occasional gifts of new fabric with which to make herself attractive dresses, I could never hope for such things.
Beautiful clothing was not for me, my mother assured me. And, looking down at my hips and curves beneath the shift dress, so boxy and homely and plain, I knew she was right. Even so, the dress wasn’t entirely without its charms. I’d added embroidered flowers down the side of the skirt, and a little lace at the collar, along with nipping in the waist, just a little, to make the most of the unshapely figure God had given me. Doing so had drawn poisoned glances from my mother and Bridget, but so long as I kept mostly to myself, so far they hadn’t insisted that I undo my changes.
Once I knew my family was out of the kitchen, I quietly left my room and tied my apron around my waist. I grabbed the basket of eggs to trade at market, and dropped a few coins I had saved from making corn husk dolls and selling them on my trips to market without my father or mother being the wiser into my pockets, then made for the front door. There stood my father waiting for me, smiling and a knot in my stomach formed.
“Good morning, father,” I said, lowering my eyes.
My father smiled even wider. “Thank you for breakfast, Sara. Delicious.”
“It was no trouble.” I slipped past him, angling myself as to prevent any contact and out the front door.
I didn’t turn back to look at him as I ran through the front garden, unlocked the front gate, and then began on the road to town. With each step farther from the house, I felt freer and happier, and looked forward to what the day might bring.
The village was raucous and joyful, full of the sights and smells of market day. I knew most everyone, and before I’d even gotten to the center square, my cheeks ached from smiling and joking and laughing. The dressmaker offered a bolt of blue calico, the color of cornflowers. She looked me up and down, and said, with a dramatic raise of her ample bosom, “I’ll even offer you a bargain, since a frame like yours, my dear, will need a somewhat generous cut.”