If only there was some way she could escape. She didn’t think Mrs. Carrigan would help her do that, even if Mrs. Carrigan was being nice to her. After all, she had genuinely broken the law, and Mrs. Carrigan, as the wife of the doctor, knew well at least two of the things she had done for which she was now being charged.
But all she’d wanted to do was shelter from the storm safely and carry on her way home. She hadn’t wanted to commit any crimes. Surely people could understand that she hadn’t intended to do these things. All she wanted was to get back to a place she never should’ve allowed herself to be talked into leaving in the first place. Being jailed for an unknown number of years wouldn’t help her get home sooner.
Too, it would mean that Gunnar would have to wait even longer for her. He’d already waited long enough, and if she made him wait much longer then it was going to be guaranteed that he would be married to someone else.
Even now there were no guarantees that Gunnar hadn’t gotten married to someone else, but she felt that there was a possibility still, a reason yet to hope, and if she went to prison for years and years, there would be no further reason to hope whatsoever.
She and the rest would have to live alone, as she was sure there was no hope for Karita, Sigrid, or Annika, particularly, to get married owing to age, nor for any of them owing to defilement.
As much as they had Alfie to love and raise, he would have no father, nor any siblings, nor any cousins that he would know, for the cousins he did have were the children of his deceased aunt and her much-hated husband, whom neither his mother nor his aunts had any desire to ever see again, thus they would never see the children again either.
Tears filled her eyes. She loved Gunnar, and she wanted to marry him, but even now, considering what had happened to her after the fire, all hope could be lost, as despite her sisters’ diligent efforts, she was just as defiled as they were, even if she hadn’t been defiled as many times as they had been.
She had wanted to get home so that she could get married. She didn’t just want to be as far away from Sacramento as possible, she had wanted to find someone who would love her and keep her — as well as her sisters — safe, so that they would never again be forced to do what Viveka’s husband had forced them to by taking them to that abhorrent place.
Always she had harboured that dream, but at this point, it all seemed lost, not just for her sisters, but even for her.
Sobs shook her body and she buried her face in her hands. Oh, how she wished things could be different somehow. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be facing a future alone.
Pronunciations:
Karita: kahreetah
Sigrid: sihgrihd
Annika: ahnnihkah
Viveka: vihvehkah
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