I was no longer the pristine clean young woman I’d been at the start of the day when the boys and I entered the house. I told them we must all head upstairs and get cleaned up, because, like me, they were no longer looking that fresh either.
I started their bathwater, then followed them to Carlo’s bedroom. Frances went off to choose some casual clothes, as I’d called them, and Carlo picked out the tee shirt and pants he wanted to wear.
Then, I marched them down the hall, checked the bath’s water temperature, and told them I’d stay outside the bathroom while they bathed, if they promised to take care of each other. “No water play. Mrs. Penn will have a meal ready soon.”
They nodded and sped into the room. I could hear them discussing how hungry they were, so I figured it would be a quick bath. When they came out about ten minutes later, it was doubtful how much scrubbing they’d done, but although I’d bathed younger boys, I’d never had to do much with the older ones. Their mothers had usually supervised them, while I was off getting a meal ready or cleaning something.
I sent the boys downstairs to sit at the table with Mrs. Penn, then I slithered into the still warm water. I was even quicker than Carlo and Frances and was dressed and ready to join them except for my hair. I’d been forced to wash it again since it was full of dust and horsehair, but I didn’t want to braid it. I toweled it as dry as I could, then left it down with a small towel across my shoulders to absorb the wet.
I could have worn my new shoes, but, like the boys, I just headed down the stairs shoeless. Mrs. Penn hadn’t seemed upset before. Perhaps she’d allow me such freedom when no one else was present.
“Simple plans never lay flat,” Mrs. Orthra had once said. “I’d never quite understood how plans could be flat or what she’d meant by that, but as I walked into the room with the boys, I saw that Mrs. Penn, and Officer Krugel were both sitting in the kitchen, I suddenly understood the concept. Plans were apparently always full of wrinkles, wrinkles that were as restless as a group of maggots exposed to the light.