4
Eden
Age 10
The people Samuel calls the housekeepers came into my room really early today. I peek my eyes open and see that the sky outside is barely bright. It feels like it might still be night outside. I pull the blankie over my face. I don’t want to wake up if it is still night.
“It is time to get ready for Divine prayers, miss.” The housekeeper peels my blankie off.
I fuss.
“I’ll draw your bath, okay?” she says as she walks away.
I don’t like being called “miss.” It feels weird. All the people who work for the Donovans told me they had to, but it didn’t make it any less weird for me.
I sit up, eyes droopy. I feel myself start to zone out. I don’t know how long I have been staring out the window near my bed, but I jump when a housekeeper comes around to stand next to me.
“Your bath is ready. Shall we pick out your clothes for the day before you head in?”
I jump at her voice. My heart is beating so fast I can hear it in my brain. After a second, I slip off the bed and follow her to the closet.
She opens it, looking through all the colors of light-browns and whites that look a little dirty. Samuel said it is cream or off white or something like that.
She pulls a long sleeve in the dirty white color out and a dress in the light-brown color. The top of the dress looks like a tank top. She also grabs white things that she called tights and a pair of shoes that look like ones my baby dolls wear.
She smiles at me. “What do you think, miss?”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
I haven’t heard anyone say her name the whole time I have been here, and I don’t know what to call her, so I want to be polite.
She looks at me. “Abigail, miss.”
“Abigail,” I say.
“Yes.” She smiles, then gestures to the outfit again. “Do you like it?”
I nod, not knowing if I have a choice.
She looks happy, though, as she makes her way to place it nicely on my bed and puts the shoes on the floor right beside the bed frame. I grab a pair of my underwear from my drawer, and she points to the bathroom. I forgot she filled my bath.
“I’ll be back when you are all finished.” Abigail leaves my room.
I take my bath and scrub extra hard to smell nice and pretty for the Donovans.
After, I carefully put on the clothes. The thingies she called tights are hard to put on. They keep sticking to my legs when I try to get my foot to the end. I fall over a couple of times right on my bottom, but after a bunch of tries, I finally got them on.
I am drying my hair with the towel when Abigail comes back into my room.
“No, miss.” She waves at me to stop.
I drop the towel immediately and look to the floor. My body becomes tense, and I don’t want to move.
What did I do wrong?
My eyes start to get all wet. I don’t want to cry, but I know I am about to get in trouble.
She gets on her knees in front of me, grabbing the towel off the floor. “Miss, you are not in trouble.” She leans her head down to look at my face. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want her to see me cry. I sniffle, and she grabs my hands. “I just didn’t want you to get your hair all tangled. I didn’t mean to scare you.”