The Glass House People (17 page)

She read over what she'd written and flung down the pen. She knew she shouldn't send this one, either. He'd read it and groan and say she was obviously still in the melodramatic teen years when atmosphere hangs heavy. She hated it when he said things like that.

She lay back and studied the crack in the ceiling over the bed. It seemed to change. Once it had looked like a giant winged insect. Then it had rather looked like Ray's profile. But now the chin seemed rounder. And the crack that defined the ear seemed to have stretched up into the head, fanning out into a map of little fissures, like fault lines. She thought now it was Clifton Becker with his smashed-out brains, come to haunt her.

At dinner Beth watched Grandmother shovel great forkfuls of green beans into her mouth and dab the melted butter off her chin with her napkin. Then she glanced over at Aunt Iris and saw her hide her beans under the pile of mashed potatoes Grandad had ladled onto her plate. Beth pushed her own beans around in circles.

She looked up at her mother, and Hannah smiled across the table. "It was a good idea you had, Beth, to invite Bernard and Monica for dinner." Hannah turned to her mother. "You think so, too, don't you, Mama? Your Sunday meal is always so good, it'll be nice to share it with company."

"We haven't had people here for years," murmured Grandmother. "But the Clementses are good people. It should be fine."

"Sure it'll be fine," agreed Grandad. "About time we opened the house and shook out the dust."

"You had no right to invite them, Elisabeth!" cried Aunt Iris, throwing down her napkin and struggling up from her chair. Beth saw her aunt's frail body was trembling, and she felt a stab of pity that anyone should be so afraid of guests.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to upset you, Aunt Iris," Beth said earnestly. "Maybe I should tell them not to come, after all." She glanced to her mother for help.

But Hannah was staring helplessly at her salad.

Help came from Grandad instead, who banged his fist on the tabletop. "Come on, Iris! It's only a dinner!"

"Don't yell at her, Henry!" chided Grandmother. "You know what she's suffered."

"Maybe we could go out to a restaurant for dinner, instead," pressed Beth. She must have been crazy to imagine even for a moment that having people to dinner here would ever work out.

"Nonsense!" said Grandad.

"Iris, darling, it'll be a very nice dinner party. You'll see." Grandmother spoke encouragingly. Aunt Iris backed away from the table, her hands pressed against her stomach. She ran into the kitchen. Though the sound of water running into the sink was very loud, everyone could hear her retching.

Beth felt just about as sick and pushed her dinner plate away.

Later in the evening Grandmother and Grandad sat in the living room with Hannah, watching TV. Tom took Romps for such a long walk Beth knew he had gone to visit Monica. Beth sat by herself out on the porch swing. She was thinking about the scene at dinner. It hadn't been just meanness that made Aunt Iris say she didn't want company. Aunt Iris really
had
looked as if she were suffering—it wasn't just melodrama that made her clutch her stomach like that. And now Beth felt responsible. They should just forget the whole thing. She would go in now and tell her aunt not to worry anymore. It wasn't worth getting sick about. This was Aunt Iris's house, too, after all—and if she didn't want company, she shouldn't have to have company.

Beth walked into the house and headed for the kitchen, full of resolve. But she stopped short just inside the doorway as Aunt Iris spun sharply from the sink, where she had been pouring herself a drink.

"So!" hissed Aunt Iris, her pale eyebrows drawn together in a taut frown. "Spying on me, were you?"

Beth's conciliatory words were suspended by surprise.

"Of course not," she said after a second. "I was just coming in to talk to you."

Aunt Iris reached out a bony, surprisingly strong hand and grabbed Beth by the shoulder. "You think I don't know, don't you? Little spy!"

"Know what?" Beth tried to back out the door.

"Coming here to snoop around! Coming here to gloat? I'm telling you—"

"You're drunk," muttered Beth, and she pushed Aunt Iris's hand off her shoulder.

"Don't think I don't know what you're up to!" screamed Aunt Iris, following her into the living room, her drink sloshing over the rim of her glass.

"Iris!" Hannah jumped up from the couch. "What is going on?"

"You!" growled Aunt Iris. "You think I don't know what you want? Get out of my way!"

Now Beth's grandparents were on their feet. Grandad pressed the pause button and the film on the VCR stopped in mid-car chase. "What's all the ruckus?" asked Grandad. "You'll wake the dead, carrying on like this."

Aunt Iris began to laugh, a high, unpleasant sound. "Oh, oh! That's rich!"

Hannah turned to her father. "Better go upstairs, Daddy. Iris is drunk." Beth could see her mother fighting to keep her temper under control. Hannah's fists were clenched in the folds of her plaid cotton sundress.

But Grandad walked shakily across the living room toward Aunt Iris. He looked pale and tired. "Oh, Iris. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"I'm not doing anything! You'd do better to ask Hanny Lynn what
she
has done to us all!" Aunt Iris broke into wild laughter.

Grandmother crossed the room to Iris, holding out her hands. "Come on, Iris, baby. Put down the drink. Here, give it to me, darling."

Tom and Romps ran up onto the porch just then. Tom peered into the house from the screen door for a long moment before opening it and stepping inside. Romps barked sharply at Aunt Iris, who clutched the glass to her chest, still laughing wildly.

Grandmother fluttered her hands helplessly. "Iris, calm down, baby. Come on, honey! My poor, sweet, Iris!"

Beth edged over to Tom, and they stood together at the foot of the stairs.

Suddenly Aunt Iris drew her arm back and hurled her glass straight at her sister. Hannah ducked and the glass crashed against the radiator and shattered.

"Bitch!" screamed Aunt Iris.

Grandmother started to cry in high, fluttery gasps: "Oh, no! Oh, no!"

Grandad attempted to restrain Aunt Iris, and Tom hurried over to help him. Beth pressed herself against the banister, unable to move.

Hannah stared at the broken glass, then walked slowly to her sister. Fury flashed in her eyes. "Iris," she began in a soft, determinedly calm voice, "it's just all the drink. If you stop, you'll calm down and see—"

Aunt Iris's hand whipped out and slapped her sister's face. "Shut up, Hanny Lynn! Lying, sneaking, gloating whore!"

Hannah covered her face with both hands and sank to her knees on the carpet.

Tom dropped Grandad's arm so fast the old man nearly fell back onto the couch. He whirled across the room to Aunt Iris."Don't you hit my mother, Aunt Iris! How dare you!" His face was a mottled red beneath his mop of orange hair. Aunt Iris raised her arm again, but now Beth's paralysis disappeared and she flew to Tom's side, pulling him out of their aunt's reach.

"Upstairs!" she cried, and dragged him toward the stairway as Aunt Iris hurled abuse after them.

Grandmother wrapped Aunt Iris in her arms, crooning. Hannah bent over Grandad, who had lowered himself onto the couch and was breathing heavily.

Beth pulled Tom into her bedroom. "Oh, Tom! She was going to hit you!" Her whole body was trembling. "She hit Mom!"

Tom sank onto the bed. He was also shaking. "If I stayed down there, I'd be hitting a few people myself!"

Beth collapsed onto the bed next to him and drew a ragged breath Her voice broke. "If she hurts Mom—"

Tom stood up. "I'm going back down there."

"No, wait a sec. Listen!"

From downstairs they could hear Grandmother's soothing voice still trying to calm Aunt Iris. "It's all right, Iris, love. It's okay now, baby."

"It will never be okay!" cried Aunt Iris. "How can you let her in this house again, Mama, after what she did? Bringing her kids back here to gloat!"

Grandmother's answer was another soft murmur.

Beth gritted her teeth. "I hate her!"

"I'm going down," said Tom.

Beth lay back and closed her eyes. Enormous fatigue folded itself over her like a quilt. The hubbub from downstairs receded and she felt a sudden, desperate desire to fall asleep. The air in the room was hot and close. The heaviness, though, seemed to come less from the humidity and more from the unsolved mystery of Clifton Becker. For a moment Beth thought she heard the beat of the old Rolling Stones song pulse across the hall. No satisfaction—how appropriate! She thought she heard the clatter of a typewriter, even imagined the little jingle of the warning bell when the carriage reached the end of a line on the page.

She wasn't sure whether she had actually slept or not when she felt a soft hand on her forehead and saw her mother sitting next to her on the bed.

"Are you okay, Bethie?"

"She hit you!" Beth sat up. Downstairs the voices were muted, but Beth could tell her grandparents and Tom were still dealing with Aunt Iris.

"I'm okay. She didn't know what she was doing."

"She did! I hate her."

"No, don't. Don't, Beth. She can't help it."

"How can you defend her? You heard the vile things she said to you!"

Then a loud crash resounded up the stairs. Aunt Iris's cracked voice started shrieking as Beth heard Tom's footsteps racing up the stairs. "Don't you go running to your mother until you hear what I have to say, boy! Listen to me! Can't you bear the truth?"

In another instant, Tom was in the room with them. "Lock the door!" he said wildly.

But Aunt Iris's voice didn't come any nearer. Apparently she was standing at the foot of the stairs, but they had no trouble hearing. "Hanny Lynn? It's time someone told your precious children the truth about their mother! Told them how you schemed to get him! Told them how you wanted him! I know the truth, and they should, too! But Hannah Lynn, there's justice in this world after all, isn't there? Even you couldn't have him in the end, could you?" Then there was more hysterical laughter, and Grandmother's frantic, soothing murmur.

Hannah set her lips. "I'm sorry, you guys."

"Oh, Mom, let's go home." Tom's voice was nearly a sob.

"I can't. Not yet."

"
Please,
Mom," pleaded Beth.

"No." Hannah dragged her fingers through her hair. "We can't go back yet. I've come back to deal with this, and I have to stay. I know now it's the only way I'll be able to move on. To survive. I've got to be able to stand on my own feet."

Now there was silence from downstairs, and then footsteps on the landing. Grandmother's gentle voice: "Come on, Henry. I've got you. Let's go to bed now."

Hannah reached over and stroked Tom's tangled hair. "It isn't just Aunt Iris who is torn apart, you guys. Our whole family is in pieces of one kind or another." She squeezed Beth's shoulder. "We have to face facts."

Facts? If they only knew the facts, there would be no mystery. How Clifton Becker died would be just one more sad story. But there weren't any facts! For an instant Beth envisioned a shattered piece of colored glass, broken fragments impossibly scattered. Could the fragments of her own family be reassembled somehow if the mystery of Clifton Becker's death were solved? Her lips tightened. She'd read too many detective novels this summer; that was her trouble. An artist wouldn't even try to fix a shattered pane but would start over with a strong, whole piece.

Then there were dragging footfalls on the stairs and Beth knew that Aunt Iris was making her way up to her room. When she heard her aunt's door click firmly shut, Beth realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a sharp burst.

"The coast is clear, I guess," sighed Hannah. "I'd better go see how Mama and Daddy are."

Tom went out onto his sunporch without another word. He closed the connecting door softly behind him. Beth lay back on the bed. She could see a few stars dotting the sky through the screened window. Her ears strained against the silence for the sounds of more bitter chaos but heard nothing. The light from the back porch below her window sent a yellow glow up onto the ceiling, the perfect soft yellow of pearlized glass. Beth closed her eyes and tried to sleep, falling almost immediately into the calming fantasy she had told Grandad about the last time she'd talked to him by his bed.

Is was a good fantasy and soothing—something all the more wonderful because it didn't have to remain a fantasy. It was a dream that could come true.

She and Ray opened their shop and became well-known teachers and artists. They got married and had a baby or two. Eventually they expanded their business to Europe and went there to live. Beth was experimenting with new methods of glasswork. One day, while they were living in Italy or somewhere, she stumbled upon the secret process by which the ancient glass artists had made the deep colors in the medieval glass. The fantasy grew a little weak here because Beth couldn't think how anyone could figure out the secret to the beautiful old colors. Those colors were something no modern artist had been able to duplicate, though many had tried. Still, somehow she managed to unlock history! Her discovery catapulted her to international fame. Her work was sought after by everyone, and her windows hung in churches and museums and homes around the world—all because she alone had succeeded where all others before her had failed, in getting the past to yield its secrets. Grandad had smiled at her tale and wished her well. If anyone could do it, he'd said, she would be the one.

She turned her head on the pillow restlessly. Tonight the fantasy lacked its usual luster. All of Aunt Iris's angry words seemed to reverberate in the still, hot house, and it was possible only in fantasies, Beth now suspected, to make the past reveal the truth.

In the morning Beth lay in bed for a long time, trying not to think about Aunt Iris and the miserable scene the night before. She stared up at the crack on the ceiling. She was quite sure now that Clifton Becker had had a profile just like that. When she heard Romps whining outside the door, she hopped up to let him in, then returned to bed, patting the mattress next to her for him to jump up. The old dog had trouble since the bed was so high, so Beth had to haul him up. He settled next to her, panting slightly. The fan whirred in the window but did little to stir the heavy air. Beth longed for the mild summer of Northern California and the morning mist from the bay.