The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore

Author:Kim Taylor Blakemore [Taylor Blakemore, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542006392
Published: 2020-01-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

My life is measured in hours and minutes, breaths and regrets.

It seems only a flick of time, as if I’d just turned my head away from Cook, my attention caught on some immaterial object—a yellow leaf floating in a blue sky, a water stain browning a wall and awaiting Jacob’s repair, the whoop of John Friday as he worked the horses. I could glance back, I think, and there would be Eugenie, reworking an embroidery pattern. Looking up, eyebrow raised, as I entered the morning room to change the ash bin or the flowers. “Good morning, Lucy,” she would say, and return to her sewing.

I could count on my fingers the times we’d spent together or even passing each other in the hall. I even envied Mr. Burton his rare dinners with her, as silent and stilted as they seemed.

Then there were our nights, when she’d leave a slip of paper in the dust bin I carried, or folded in the linens brought down to wash. How I hungered for those nights. I wanted the taste of her kisses, the brush of her hand on my cheek, the soft words against my neck, the whispers as I read her correspondence aloud, and the titters at the cheap (but thrilling) romances she loved to hear. I tasted desire: round and spicy, pepper hot. I tasted life: sharp and rough and hungry.

If I glance the other way, there’s no more kitchen and the sky is not blue and Eugenie does not hide a smile as I slip by and brush my hand to hers. But perhaps those were all lies anyway, lies I’ve told to keep myself sane. What does it matter, the story I tell? The words cannot undo what’s been done nor give life back to all those who’ve lost it.

Words can be twisted any which way. Move a sentence here, change a name there, shift a day or desire. Put words in one mouth or take some from another.

She stands accused of murder.

She stole a horse to flee her crimes.

She screamed and screamed at the men who caught her. A harridan drenched in blood.

She stole a bracelet of gold and emeralds from the wrist of a gasping woman. A thief.

She crushed another’s head and left the girl to freeze in the snow. Heartless.

She could account for none of it.

She could account for all of it.

She blamed the living.

She blamed the dead.

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