I looked from one to the other.
“Why are you here?”
Helena’s hand remained on Clare’s shoulder.
“Because Mr. George gave us somewhere safe to stay.”
If she had slapped me, it might have been less disorienting.
My husband. Quiet, punctual, reserved George. My husband who folded his socks in pairs and alphabetized old tax records and could sit through an entire meal saying no more than three sentences if he was tired. My husband who had been going to this farm three times a week for years had apparently been giving shelter to women I had never heard of.
I sat down abruptly on the top step because my knees stopped cooperating.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Clare answered before Helena could.
“I was sleeping in the bus station in Millbrook,” she said in a voice so small I had to lean forward to hear it. “Mr. George found me there. He bought me dinner. I thought he was going to be like other men, but he wasn’t. He just said if I needed a place where nobody could find me, I could come here.”
I looked at Helena.
“How many women?”
“Right now?” she said. “Three. Clare, me, and Natalie. Natalie’s in town with her son at a doctor’s appointment. Over the years there have been more.”
She folded her arms.