The Glass House People (12 page)

"Grandmother said the fresh air will do you good," said Tom soothingly.

"Nothing wrong with my lungs! It's the old legs that get shaky."

The top of Grandad's bald head gleamed in the hot morning sun. The skin was spotted and shiny—even wet-looking. "What did you put on your head, Grandad?" Beth asked, touching him with a cautious finger.

He laughed. "Sun block. Your mother's doing. Said since I'm almost recovered from the stroke, she's not about to let me get skin cancer!"

"Mom's a safety maniac these days. It's part of the new persona." Beth shoved her hair back off her already-sweaty face and stopped at the corner. "Which way?"

"Anywhere that's fast," said Grandad. "Way too hot. I need my air conditioner. Let's just go around the block once and call it a day."

"No," said Beth, thinking the last place she wanted to end up was the house again. "Remember what Grandmother said about fresh air."

"Fresh air? You call this fresh?" sputtered Grandad as a truck hurtled past them.

"I know," said Beth quickly. "Let's go over by the Waverley Theater to the candy store. That's where Monica works. She's the girl I saw the movies with last night."

"That's the shop your mother stole the candy bar from," Grandad said.

"It's still in business after all these years?" asked Tom. "Then lead on." He fingered his allowance in the pocket of his shorts.

"Hasn't changed in years," said Grandad. "Your mother went there when she was a little girl—and I went when I was a little boy. Difference was, Hanny Lynn had a few pennies to spend, and my brothers and I just pressed our noses against the window until old Mr. Clements sent us packing." He laughed. "Old guy wasn't so bad, really. If we came at the right time—Saturday evening, just around closing—he'd give us each a bag of the broken cookies and mashed jelly beans to take home."

"Where are your brothers now?" asked Tom.

"Dead, both of them. I'm next in line."

"Oh, Grandad!" Beth jostled the handles of the wheelchair.

"I'm only speaking the truth, my girl."

She pushed the wheelchair around the corner. Clements's Candy was a small shop wedged between the Waverley Theater and a bank, part of the long row of small businesses that lined Penn's Pike. Most of the stores were shabby, their windows crammed with goods, outdated mannequins with lacquered hair modeling sundresses, lots of hardware and kitchenware. One store with the words "Thrift Shoppe" painted in purple letters across the big picture window belched a musty cloud of air from an old fan as they passed.

Beth tied Romps's leash to a parking meter, then held the candy store door open while Tom maneuvered the wheelchair inside. "I'll bring you a snack," she promised the little dog.

Clements's smelled of sugar, of fresh-baked doughnuts, of age. The floors were wooden, the wide boards warmly polished. Glass-topped display cabinets held pastries and breads; bins of candies lined the wall behind the wooden counter at the back of the store. Tom headed for these bins, abandoning Grandad's chair in the middle of the floor. Beth rescued him, and they joined Tom at the far counter. She scanned the store but saw no sign of Monica.

"All right! Look at this homemade fudge!" Tom's voice sounded happier than it had in days. He pawed through his pockets for some money.

"This is the boy who is saving up for a computer?" Grandad asked Beth. "Seems willing enough to part with his cash."

"Only where chocolate is concerned," Beth said. "Tom will single-mouthedly keep Clements's in business while we're in town."

Monica walked out of a back room, her arms laden with bags of gumdrops. Her face lit up when she saw Beth, and she dumped the bags onto the counter. "Hi!"

Beth introduced Tom and Grandad to Monica.

"So this is the computer maniac," said Monica after she'd greeted Grandad and Tom. "He doesn't look so scary to me!" She glanced up at Tom, flipping her long hair back over her shoulders and setting a pair of heavy silver earrings dancing. He grinned down at her.

"It comes on slowly," said Beth, noting Tom's lingering glance at Monica's hair. "One day you find yourself trembling."

"I can believe that," she said, slanting another glance up at Tom. Then she brushed off her apron. "So, how can I help you? What'll it be? We make the chocolates ourselves."

"I haven't decided yet," Tom said. "Everything looks so good."

"If you drool on anything, you have to pay for it," said Beth, poking Tom's shoulder as he studied his choices.

"The fudge is really good," Monica said. "My dad's specialty. The doughnuts are great, too."

"Another of your dad's specialties?" asked Grandad.

"No, my own." She smiled. "But don't let me influence you. Take your time. I'll be back in a minute—there's another batch of doughnuts almost ready." She disappeared into the back room behind the counter.

"My bet is that she's Bernard Clements's girl," said Grandad. "Bernard was about your mother's age—they went to school together. Bernard's uncle ran the shop then, and Bernard always said he wanted to own the place himself one day. For a while he and Hanny Lynn dated, you know. Used to talk about how they'd get married and run the place together."

"Was Bernard's uncle the one who used to give you and your brothers the bags of mashed jelly beans?" asked Beth.

"No, no, child. That would have been the uncle's father. This store has been in one family for about four generations. It's
the
place to buy sweets now—people like the old-fashioned look. But what they don't understand is that this is the way Clements's Candy
always
was. This isn't a look. It's just the way the place
is.
"

"I like it," said Tom, still gazing at the selection. His voice was cheerful. "And I like Monica."

The dark-haired girl returned at that moment from the back room. "Made up your minds yet?"

"How about a quarter pound of jelly beans and five pieces of that chocolate stuff there." Tom pointed.

"Dad's famous chocolate mousse drops. I'll give you six for the price of five." She dropped his candy into a small paper bag.

"Hey, thanks!" He grinned at her. "That's what I call good old-fashioned service."

"The catch is that you and Beth have to promise to come back soon. Maybe we can do something all together? It's pretty dull around here. I mean, the money's good and it's fun working with Dad—but after work, there's not much to do."

"Sure!" said Tom.

"How about a mousse drop for you two?" Monica asked Beth and Grandad, offering them the candy on a small tray.

Beth grinned. "Thanks! I didn't have any breakfast."

"I'm afraid my doctor has outlawed chocolates—too much caffeine," said Grandad. "But they certainly look delicious."

"How about this, then? This is on the house." Monica handed Grandad a small bag with a fragrant doughnut inside. "Fresh from the fryer. Whole wheat and honey—just what the doctor ordered."

"You know how to do business," Grandad laughed, accepting the bag. "You Bernard Clements's girl?"

"That's right." She looked at him with new interest. "Do you know him?"

"He was my daughter's high school boyfriend—almost twenty years ago." Grandad hesitated for a moment, then peered up into Monica's face. "Maybe you can give your dad a message? Tell him that Hanny Lynn is back in town for a while. Hannah Savage—that was her name then. He'll remember her."

"Sure, I'll tell him," agreed Monica with a smile that included Beth and Tom. Then they said good-bye, promising to get together again soon, and Beth and Tom wheeled Grandad out of the cool store back into the heat of the morning. Beth untied Romps and fed him a mousse drop.

Tom pushed the chair and Beth walked next to him. He nudged her, looking pointedly down at Grandad. Interview time.

"So what was that about Monica's dad and our mom?" Beth asked in what she hoped was a casual tone.

"Nice boy," said Grandad. He sounded tired now, as if the brief outing had lasted too long. Tom noticed this and started pushing the chair faster, trying to avoid the bumps in the sidewalk.

"How long did they date?" pressed Beth.

"Don't remember. Let's see—she was in high school, of course. Seventeen, probably. I never let either of my girls date boys until they'd turned sixteen. Probably sounds strict to you." He paused. "But I was strict. With girls then you had to be." Now he sighed heavily. "Not that it mattered in the end, the way things turned out."

Beth and Tom looked at each other. Then Tom pressed for details. "So Mom was dating Bernard about the time she met that lodger guy?"

Grandad craned his head to look back at Tom and Beth. "So you got Hanny to tell you about Clifton Becker?" he asked in surprise. "What did she say?"

Beth spoke softly. "She said he was wonderful and that she was in love with him."

Grandad snorted. "Did she mention, perhaps, that he was also Iris's fiancé?"

"Of course," said Tom. "And she told us how jealous Aunt Iris was when she found out that Clifton Becker loved Mom instead."

Grandad was silent for a long time. He lifted his hands from the chair sides in a helpless gesture, then let them drop again. Beth motioned for Tom to stop pushing, and she walked around to the front of Grandad's chair. She knelt in front of him.

"Grandad, Mom told us she had to leave home because everyone thought she had pushed Clifton Becker down the stairs."

"But we know it can't be true!" Tom added in a staunch voice. He came around to the front of Grandad's chair and crouched next to Beth. "Mom isn't like that!"

In the moment of silence that followed Beth imagined how they would look to a passerby: a tableau in the middle of the sidewalk on a hot summer's day. An old man in his wheelchair with his two grandchildren kneeling before him as if for a benediction. Who would guess they were talking about murder?

When Grandad finally spoke, his voice was more than tired—it was shaking. "Knew this would come up again sooner or later. Wanted more than anything for Hanny Lynn to come home again—but I knew this would come up. I never wanted to believe she would do something like that—never. Not my Hanny Lynn."

"Oh, thank you!" Beth stared up into Grandad's eyes; her own suddenly tear-filled ones shone with the relief she felt. "Oh, Grandad, you believe she's innocent! You know she didn't do it!"

His weary voice was gentle, and he closed his eyes, one hand reaching out to touch Beth's hair. "Beth, girl, I don't know anything for sure. But I never could believe it of her. Iris swears she saw Hanny Lynn push him—and Hanny Lynn swears she didn't, says that Iris had more reason.... And who knows? Your grandmother believes what Iris says, though it has nearly killed her all these years. Sometimes I wonder if that's the main reason I believe Hanny Lynn. Just to keep a balance in the family."

"That
can't
be why!" objected Tom. "You must know Mom is innocent! Grandmother didn't see Mom push Clifton, did she? She believes Aunt Iris without any real proof at all!"

"Maybe so, maybe so, my boy. Your grandmother has always championed Iris—I often wonder if Iris would have had a happier life if she hadn't been so coddled. Hanny Lynn was born, you know, the same year Iris had polio. I think all the attention Hanny deserved as a new baby went to Iris instead, and poor little Hanny Lynn never got her fair share. Not from her mother, anyway. I guess I've tried to make up for that in my own way, favoring Hanny over Iris at times...." He sighed and opened his eyes. "Ah, but who really knows why we do what we do? Our family has always been divided. Lots of families have little problems like that. But the business with Clifton Becker cracked us right smack down the middle—never mind it all happened twenty years ago."

Beth took one of his thin, age-spotted hands in hers. "But, Grandad, maybe the crack can be fixed up? Sort of soldered back together?"

He shook his head and withdrew his hand. "It's not like a stained-glass window, girl. Things have gone on like this for too long. You two kids shouldn't be worrying about it. It has nothing to do with you—and there's nothing you can fix by stirring things up."

"But she's our mother," said Tom in a low voice. And Beth found herself nodding.

"We're family—all of us," she said, surprising herself. "And it's hard to live in a house so full of tension. Even for a summer."

Grandad rubbed his eyes, suddenly querulous. "I'm tired. It's too hot out here."

Beth and Tom rose to their feet without another word. Tom resumed pushing the chair, and no one spoke as they continued along the route home, bumping gently up and down curbs. But as they turned the corner onto Spring Street, Grandad's rumbling broke the silence.

"Let's just get it straight, for the record. I didn't see Iris push Clifton. And I didn't see Hanny Lynn do it, either. But it's Iris who has the violent streak in her. We didn't see it much when she was young—only sometimes in her paintings. She didn't drink then, but you've seen her now. And when she gets going, I wouldn't be surprised to find her standing over my bed with a knife in her hand. Would she have had it in her to push the man she loved—if she felt he'd betrayed her? Maybe so. Maybe so."

They had reached the house. Aunt Iris poked her head out the porch door as they came up the driveway. She held the door open for them as Beth guided Grandad up the steps and Tom carried the wheelchair.

"Did you enjoy your walk?" she asked brightly into their silence.

Hannah drove Beth to the glass shop to buy more glass later that week. On the drive, she asked two or three times if Beth was all right—she'd noticed how little Beth was eating. But, as on the night she'd gone to the movies with Monica, Beth felt almost entirely recovered—renewed—once she was out of the house. "I'm fine," she'd fold her mother.

But as the days went on, working down in the basement was the only thing keeping Beth sane. The window was going to be big—it had to be if Beth were to etch in any of the details from the original painting. She had sketched the painting into the version she would use for her window pattern, then began tracing the pattern shapes onto the pieces of glass and numbering them with a felt-tipped marker. She ran her glass cutter lightly along the lines and broke the different shapes free with her rubber-tipped pliers. Then she set up the grinder and donned her goggles. She had to smooth the edges of each piece, one by one, before arranging them like puzzle pieces on the paper pattern.