Wishes by Jude Deveraux

longer.”
    By the time Terel reached the sanctity of her house, her blood was boiling. She was ready to tear Nellie to pieces. How dare she act like this? How dare she call attention to herself like this?
    Terel went first to the kitchen, then to the garden, but Nellie wasn’t in either. Nor was she anywhere else in the house. It took Terel a few minutes to realize that Nellie was still out with Mr. Montgomery.
    She sat down hard on a footstool in the parlor. Nellie was always home. Since Terel was a little girl, Nellie had been at home waiting for her. She remembered coming home from school, and Nellie would be in the kitchen ironing. Nellie had only been fourteen then, so she’d had to stand on a box to be high enough for the ironing board, but when Terel returned she’d get down and get milk and cookies for her.
    Now Terel put her little handbag on the table and noted with disgust that the surface was dusty. Slowly, she got up and went back to the kitchen. Usually the place was neat and clean, but now the big table was covered with flour and there was a lump of dried, cracked dough to one side. The door had been left open, and flies buzzed over everything. The fire in the stove had gone out.
    In the other rooms downstairs everything was dusty. If Nellie didn’t constantly stay on that lazy Anna, the girl did nothing. Now, with Nellie having been gone most of the day, Anna was probably sleeping somewhere.
    Upstairs, the rooms were as bad. The bathroom hadn’t been cleaned, and her father’s whisker-filled lather had dried on the basin. In Terel’s room clothes were everywhere. This morning she’d had a difficult time deciding what to wear today, and all the clothes she’d decided against were still strewn about the room. On the bed was the pink taffeta that Terel had expressly asked Nellie to repair, but the skirt was still torn at the waist.
    She went to her father’s room, and it didn’t look much better than her own. His clothes from the day before were on the floor, and six pairs of shoes had been set out for Nellie to polish, but all six were still dusty.
    Terel moved down the hall. Nellie’s room was, as always, neat and tidy, but it was the only bit of order in the chaotic house.
    Thoughtfully, Terel went back downstairs to the parlor. From what the townspeople had been saying, whatever was going on between Nellie and Mr. Montgomery was serious. Serious as in permanent. Serious as in taking Nellie away.
    Terel looked at the dusty parlor and thought about the rooms upstairs. If Nellie got married and left the house, who would have to see to the cooking and cleaning? She knew her father wouldn’t bother himself. Although Nellie tended to look at their father through rose-colored glasses, Terel saw him for what he was. He was as tightfisted a man as had ever lived. Terel had an idea that her father’s freight company made quite a bit of money, but Charles Grayson wasn’t about to part with any more of it than he could help. That’s why they lived in a very ordinary house and had only one very bad, but cheap, servant. Charles wouldn’t part with his precious money to raise their standard of living.
    Terel had learned how to deal with him. When she wanted new clothes she went to a store and charged them. Her father’s pride kept him from refusing to pay the bills.
    But Nellie knew nothing about their father. All Charles had to do was say he couldn’t afford more servants and Nellie doubled her efforts to help make ends meet.
    So what would happen if Nellie left, Terel thought. What if she went away and left Terel and Charles alone? Terel knew that Charles would make her life hell. He’d no doubt expect Terel to spend her days cooking and trying to get the lazy Anna to do something. If Terel did get out of doing the work, it would only be through waging enough battles to equal a war. Her father could be pleasant; cold, perhaps, but all right if his basic needs were taken care of and he didn’t have to