“I suppose that's the one we've heard about.” The other woman responded at the same volume. “His kept woman.”
The label spilled like ice over Kizzie's skin, dousing any of the pride she'd felt from making it to town on her own.
Kept woman.
She'd heard of kept women before and never in a good light. The phrase brought a whole host of images Kizzie never imagined matching.
Loose woman. Prostitute.
Her breath caught as the warmth of shame heated her face.Not good enough to marry.
“I suppose we can find something …” One of her golden brows tipped with her smile. “Suitable for you.”
Suitable? The phrasing paired with the women's words hinted at a mocking meaning, which heated Kizzie's face even more.
She slipped back toward the door a step.
“Perhaps I've come to the wrong shop.” She cleared her throat from the rising emotions. “I'm actually looking for practical and … modest.”
“Practical and modest?” Mrs. Hanes did little to hide her smug smile.
“Modest?” one of the ladies by the window scoffed in a false whisper to the other lady. “Too late for that, from what I can see.”
“This … this ain't the right place for me.” Kizzie shook her head. “Thank you kindly.”
She backed out the door into the cold, squeezing Charlie close and bracing herself against the burn in her eyes. The label “kept woman” reverberated in her head, piercing like nettles. She barely made it into the buggy before the tears came, with Charlie joining in. Against the cold, she maneuvered to modestly cover herself as she fed him, the buggy providing further protection from the wintry air and curious onlookers.
No one waited back home for her.
No one looked for her return.
No amount of pretty things in the world could fill her heart's ache for a hug from someone who loved her.
She'd never felt so alone.
Wind blew around her, drawing her attention toward the darkening sky, a single ray of sunlight slipping through the clouds like a ribbon of gold to the earth. Was heaven just on the other side of the ribbon? Had she lost her chance to find her way there someday? Kept women didn't make it to heaven, did they?
She opened her mouth to pray but then pinched her lips closed, the echoes of the storekeeper's voice crowding in against more heavenly thoughts.
Her bleary gaze finally fastened on the general store, a simple frock showcased in one of the front windows along with household items and supplies. She sniffled and wiped at her face with her gloved hand.
All she wanted to do was ride back to the house and never leave, but life didn't work with her wants. Charlie needed clothes. She needed to purchase other items.
The needs had to bend to the wants.
A reality that seemed to go hand in hand with being a parent.
She pressed her eyes closed, aching for the comfort, the wisdom, of her mama.
Almost as if the desire nudged a memory, Kizzie heard her mama's voice in her mind.
“Life is hard, Kizzie. You can look for easy in all kinds of places, but more likely than not, that easy turns to its own kind of hard. The real test is what you do when the hard comes. There's bound to be more times in life than not that the hard gets too big for your own shoulders. That's why you need someone bigger, stronger, wiser.”
But Mama hadn't been speaking about her own shoulders.
She'd been referring to God's.
Tears burned afresh beneath her lashes.
