Broken Flower (Early Spring 1)

"I want you to wash your hair as well," she said. She laid out my clothing. "I'll be back in a while to see that you've done so.'

She starred out again and out of curiosity. I pushed the whirlpool button. The air churned the water around me, making the bubbles bigger and bigger so fast, they nearly covered my face. It made me laugh. Finally, something was fun. However, Miss Harper was back in the doorway because she heard the noise. When she saw what I had done, she screamed at me.

"Shut that off! We take baths to get clean and not to play in the water. You're too old for that sort of thing. Shut it off!"

I did quickly. The bubbles had gone to the very edge of the tub.

"Look at what you've done. You could have soaked the floor here. Never do that again."

"But why is it in the tub if I can't do it?"

"It's...stupid," she said, flustered by my question. "Just don't do it. It's time you got out, dried yourself, and got dressed."

"I didn't wash my hair yet." I said.

"Then don't dillydally anymore. Wash it.'

When I rose out of the bubbles, her eyes went to my buds. For a moment she looked intrigued, curious, and then she realized she was staring at my chest and pivoted like a soldier in a parade and was gone.

After I had dried and dressed myself, she returned to inspect me and finally gave me a compliment. "Very good," she said. "You know how to dress and brush your hair well. Now let's go to dinner. I understand from your grandmother that she has already begun to educate you on dining etiquette. I'll help with that at every meal."

I followed her out and down the stairs to the dining room. Grandmother Emma was already at the table. She looked very tired and very upset to me. Something new had happened. I was sure it involved Ian. He wasn't at the table.

"Where's Ian?" I asked.

"Your brother will not be taking any meals with us for the next three days,"

"Why not?"

"He is confined to his room," she said. "He left our property today, which is a direct violation of my order. He went walking on the road where there is a great deal of traffic, too. All we need now is another injury in this family and I'll go out of my mind. He is not permitted to do any of the things he likes to do outside until he learns how to behave and how to listen to Miss Harper.

"If he disobeys me this time. I might have to send him off to a military school camp. I've told him that, warned him. I will do it," she said.

I had no doubt she would.

Miss Harper looked at me, her face soaked in self-satisfaction.

Nancy didn't care about us. Grandmother Emma was totally on Miss Harper's side. Ian was locked up and I was alone.

Mama. I cried inside myself. Please, oh please, wake up.

I sank to my seat and my dinner etiquette instruction began in earnest.

I was beginning to feel as if I had been a victim of some evil magician who had caused my parents' accident and turned me into Miss Harper's puppet. She held my strings tightly in her long, thin fingers and tugged especially at the one tied to my heart.

I didn't have much of an appetite, but I had to eat as much as I could while under Miss Harper's eyes and instructions. She did say it wasn't proper for a young lady to eat a great deal and look like she hadn't had a meal for weeks. She made me eat slower, too. I could see that Grandmother Emma not only approved of Miss Haiper's comments and instructions, but truly appreciated them.

"Miss Harper's mother and I went to the same finishing school," she told me.

"That was fortunate for me," Miss Harper said. "My mother became my finishing school teacher after my father had passed away. Money wasn't as available. He never prepared for that eventuality enough," she continued.

Despite how much I disliked her. I couldn't help but be fascinated by what she would reveal about herself.

"Isn't that like most men?" Grandmother Emma said. "They think they'll live forever and need not worry that much about who will be left behind. I made sure my husband had plenty of life insurance. Every time I added to his policy or added a policy, he would rant and rave that it was money wasted. What it really did was remind him of his own mortality and no man wants that,"

"No, they don't," Miss Harper said. She said it with such bitterness I wondered if she liked her father at all. I could see that he might not have liked her.

"Whatever, your mother did a fine job with you, Millicent"