Best Lesbian Romance by Angela Brown

Author:Angela Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2010-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

SIVONYA

Teresa Lamai

Lowell, Massachusetts, 1915

General Prudence gazes out my window and wipes her forehead. Her Salvation Army uniform is dark with sweat.

“Miss Shea,” she sighs, “you’re an example to the others.” She reaches to rub at the greasy brown windowpane but thinks better of it. Her gloved hand fumbles its way to her purse. She draws out four silver dollars—I hear their sweet clink—and lays three of them near my washstand.

Each Sunday, General Prudence visits the boarding houses for us mill girls. Now that her brother owns the mills, she’s made it her mission to keep us all contented, sober, and safe from moral turpitude.

“Your kind influence is so helpful,” I murmur. She turns then, grinning proudly.

She has the distinctive smell of a charity lady, as if she bathed in camphor before coming to our neighborhood. When she steps nearer I squeak, “Thanks again for the lovely book.” I glance at the title, My Second Reader.

There’s the crow of a rooster and we both glance outside. Barefoot children race among the swags of sooty laundry. They cover their mouths and bite their lips as they play; the landlady’s sons will beat them if they make noise before noon.

Sometimes the silence plumps and expands all around me, as if I were being suffocated in mattresses. I won’t cry out, although I feel the scream like a very hot bullet, just in the back of my throat.

The general shudders and closes her purse. “Well, lord knows you need something useful to do on your Sundays off….”

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