The Road Taken Read Free Page A

Alfred made a face and shrugged.
    Rose moped along the water’s edge, feeling gravelly sand in her stockings and pain in her heart, and wishing she could go home. Alfred and Huey couldn’t have been more unlike, and she didn’t know why the grown-ups forced them on each other. Alfred was self-righteous, his widowed mother’s “little man,” a cocky miniature adult; while Huey was still a cuddly, vulnerable child. Alfred was athletic and coordinated, his older cousins had taught him how to swim, and he was already diving off the “high wall” into the water with the other kids; Hugh just wanted to spend hours dreamily looking for shells. When the families were together Alfred was the leader and Hugh the follower. But at least they got along.
    “How nicely they play together,” Celia Kisler said. “They will be good brothers.”
    Papa looked smug, as if he had made an excellent choice. That’s what you think, Rose thought, and glanced at Maude in despair. Hugh, however, gazing at Alfred with big eyes, looked ecstatic.
    And suddenly it was fall and their father married Celia Kisler. Everyone they knew came to the wedding, and seemed to think it was a happy ending for both the bride and the groom. Celia Kisler, now Celia Smith, sold her bakery to the baker, and her house to a Portuguese family, and moved in with her new family.
    “Now you’ll call
me
Mother,” she said to the children.
    How could Celia dare to say that, Rose wondered. How could she call this woman Mother? But at least she didn’t have to call her stepmother “Mama.” There would be only one Mama.
    People got married and then they had children; that was a fact of life whether you liked it or not. Quite quickly, Celia had a baby girl, whom they named Daisy. Alfred and Hugh now had to share a room. Hugh didn’t mind, but Alfred wasn’t happy about it, although he got used to it. Alfred had also gotten used to Hugh following him around, and finally even seemed to like it. Whenever Hugh got on his nerves Alfred could send him away with a simple command, and only Rose saw the hurt in Hugh’s eyes.
    Rose still didn’t like Alfred very much—there was a tough wildness in him—but she loved the little baby, Daisy, right away. How could you not love a baby? It wasn’t the baby’s fault that she had been born to this family. Daisy was soon followed by another girl, Harriette, and Rose loved her, too. Both her little half sisters were pretty and healthy. It was a boisterous household now with six children so close in age. If Papa regretted not having another boy he didn’t say so. Celia, of course, was always pointing out to him how wonderful Alfred was, as if to make up for the lack of another son of his own.
    Celia was smart, Rose began to realize at fourteen; Celia knew how to handle a man. She could probably learn from Celia, who might show her how to grow up since her own mother wasn’t here to do it. But Rose still couldn’t feel close to Celia, and she didn’t think she wanted to learn anything from her. Maude would be mother enough.
    When Rose had her first menstrual period she was terrified at the sight of the blood, but it was Maude she went to, not Celia. Maude explained to her what it was, said she was not to exercise or bathe while she was unwell, and then with a little embarrassment Maude told her that now that she would be menstruating every month she was grown up enough to have a baby of her own, and therefore to stay away from men.
    But of course she would stay away from men! She was a nice girl. Men made you pregnant, Rose knew, but she was not sure how the babies got in there in the first place. Maude was so evasive Rose was sure she didn’t know either. Rose knew it had to do with the marriage bed, although from whispers and gossip she’d overheard she knew that sometimes it happened out of it. People always gave you warnings, they never gave you details. People did not discuss these things, and they had no mother. It was