Glory Girl (3 page)

“Not me.”

Matthew had had all the trouble he wanted for one day. He looked back at the road. All he wanted was for Joshua to come home and for it to be bedtime.

“What are you looking for?” Angel said. She came into the room, brushing her hair. She was getting ready to wash it and then roll it again. Sometimes Anna asked her, “Why on earth do you roll your hair at night when you’re going to wash it the next morning?” But Angel never explained. Anna had plain brown hair, and Angel felt she would not understand.

“I want to see that letter!” Anna said. She opened the top drawer again and slammed it shut. “Remember, I was telling you last night that Dad got a letter?”

“Oh, that. It’s in his jacket.”

“His jacket? How do you know?”

“I saw him reading it this morning, and then he goes and stuffs it in his pocket. You’re practically sitting on it right now.”

“This jacket?” The jacket was slung over the back of the chair. Anna patted the pockets until she heard the rustling of paper. Her eyes gleamed as she pulled out the letter. “Aha!”

She smoothed the letter over her knees. “It’s from Uncle Newt!” She began to read to herself. “Guess what?” She read a few more lines. She was moving her lips now. She glanced up. “No wonder Dad was upset.”

“You better put the letter back,” Angel said. “The bus is coming.”

“The bus is a million miles away, in the hospital parking lot. Guess what?”

“What?”

“Uncle Newt’s getting out of prison!”

“It
is
the bus!” Matthew cried at the door. “I see it!” He pressed his face against the glass. “Only I don’t see Josh. Maybe Josh died. Maybe—”

Anna stuffed the letter back into her father’s pocket and stood up quickly. “I’m glad you two have good hearing. I’m beginning to think I’m deaf. A teacher in second grade did tell me I needed to have my hearing checked.”

“They always tell me that too.” Angel moved to the door to watch with Matthew.

“There he is!” Matthew screamed. “He’s alive!”

Relief flooded through his body so fast it left him weak. He held onto the doorknob.

“He’s sitting up!” He made it sound like a miracle. “And he’s eating something! Ice cream!”

His joyful screams filled the house. He spun around. “Ice cream!” He flung open the door and filled his lungs with cold November air.

He stood, grinning, as the bus rolled up beside the worn chinaberry tree and came to its usual shuddering stop.

“They’re home!”

As Matthew crossed the porch, hopping with excitement, he suddenly paused. He wondered if Joshua would remember the last words he, Matthew, had said. His smile faded slightly. He wrapped one arm around the post. He ran his foot back and forth over the warped floorboards.

This had happened when his parents had been carrying Joshua to the bus. Matthew had run along beside them. He had been crying, and he really loved his brother for the first time in his life.

Choking with love and fear and remorse, he had cried, “You can have the bicycle. It’s yours!”

He wondered if Joshua had heard that. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he wouldn’t remember. Head injuries sometimes caused amnesia. He didn’t want Joshua to have amnesia, of course, but he did hope Joshua hadn’t heard him.

Maybe it was selfish, maybe it was wrong, but he wasn’t through with the bicycle yet. He liked that bicycle. And, after all, if Joshua hadn’t gotten in the way with his big head, he would have ridden all the way down the hill on it.

Anna passed him, running toward the bus. She took the steps in one leap. Matthew broke into a grin and followed.

Oh, we’re climbing, climbing, climbing

Every day it’s one step more.

Higher, higher, higher

Than we’ve ever been before.

Looking, looking, looking

For that heavenly shore

That will lead us to the

Kingdom of Love.

T
HE GLORY FAMILY WAS
singing in the living room, learning a new song, while Anna fixed supper in the kitchen.

The worst thing that could happen to a person in this family, Anna decided as she waited for the water to boil, was not being able to carry a tune or beat time.

Anna lifted the lid on the pot. “Boil!” she told the water. She slammed down the lid.

There were lots of people who didn’t fit into their families. Anna reminded herself of this all the time—the dumb one in a family of brains, the ugly one in a family of beauties. But no one—Anna was sure of this—felt as left out as she did when her family sang together.

“Joshua, you’re not in rhythm,” Mr. Glory said. “Pay attention!”

“I can’t!” Joshua wailed, letting his drumsticks drop to his sides. “My head hurts!”

Joshua had had forty-two stitches put in his head the day before, three to close each puncture. Now his head was ringed with gauze, and some of the black strings from the stitches stuck out the bottom.

“Let him go lie down,” Mrs. Glory pleaded from the piano bench.

“Those stitches cost me sixty-four dollars!”

“I know that, dear.”

Mr. Glory had been in one of his “moods,” as Mrs. Glory called them, for two days. Anna knew it was because Uncle Newt was getting out of prison. She had been waiting for his mood to lift so she could bring up the subject.

“I think you boys
try
to be bad,” Mr. Glory said.

“I don’t,” Matthew said.

“Let me tell you there’s enough evil in this world without you two adding to it. I read the other day that there’s kids in New York City sucking coins out of subway slots. They make a living out of that. And a woman in California is feeding her kids cat food while she eats T-bone steaks. And I—”

Joshua, recognizing the start of a long monologue, interrupted with, “
I
don’t try either.” Tears began to roll down his cheeks.

Joshua was used to not getting sympathy. Usually when he came in, hurt and crying, Mr. Glory would say, “Well, that’s what you get for chasing a Coca-Cola truck.”

But yesterday—the sight of himself in the hospital mirror—they had had to bring the mirror to prove to him he had not really been scalped. And as he had looked at himself, his forehead painted yellow, a path shaved through his hair, his head ringed with black stitches, he had felt so sorry for himself that he had cried like a baby. Now he felt fresh sobs shaking his body. His drumsticks clattered to the floor.

Mr. Glory relented. “All right,” he said, “go to bed. Take a pain pill.”

“Thank you,” Joshua said tearfully as he crawled out from under the drum set.

“Can I have a pain pill too?” Matthew asked quickly. “My knee still—”

“No! And these accidents have got to stop! You’ve had your last stitch, Joshua, you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care if you split yourself wide open. You too, Matthew.”

“Me? He’s the one that’s got the stitches. He’s got ninety-one! I’ve only got forty-two!” He could not keep the sense of injustice out of his quivering voice.

“Matthew!”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right now.” Mr. Glory ran his hands through his limp hair. He needed another body permanent. “Now, Angel, after we sing the chorus, you—”

The phone rang, interrupting him. “Get that, Anna,” he called.

“It’ll be for Angel,” Anna said, putting the lid back on the pot. “Some stupid boy. ‘You don’t know me, but I saw you in the blah … blah … blah.’” She came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on her jeans.

In the living room Mr. Glory nodded to his wife. “Maudine, let’s try it again.”

Mrs. Glory began the introduction. She had been playing the piano since she was four years old. She never had to look down at the keys.

“‘Oh, we’re climbing, climbing, climbing.’”

Anna picked up the phone in the hall. “Hello.”

“‘Every day it’s one step more.’”

“What?” Anna asked.

“‘Higher, higher, higher.’”

“Wait a minute, let me close the door. Now, who is this?” she asked.

“‘Than we’ve ever been before.’”

Anna said, “Oh,” as if she’d been stuck with a pin. Slowly she lowered the phone and held it against her chest. Then she lifted it and said, “I’ll get my dad, Uncle Newt. Hold on.”

She opened the door to the living room. A chill of dread caused her to shudder slightly. “Dad?”

“‘Looking, looking, looking for that heavenly shore—’”

“Dad,” she said louder.

“Keep going, Maudine,” Mr. Glory said as he walked toward the hall. Mrs. Glory began the second verse with a ripple of chords. “Who is it?”

Anna let out her breath in a rush. “It’s Uncle Newt. He says he wrote you a letter and he hasn’t heard from you and he’s getting out of prison and needs to know if—”

Mr. Glory spun around as if he were looking for someone to strike. Mrs. Glory stopped playing the piano. Angel’s high note trailed off.

“Did she say Newt’s getting out of prison?” Mrs. Glory asked. She stood up so quickly that the piano stool fell over backwards. “John, you’ve had a letter from Newt?”

Mr. Glory did not answer. Nostrils flaring, he drew in a breath. He showed his teeth like a dog. When anybody saw Mr. Glory in a rage, they never doubted that people had evolved from animals.

“Newt is on the phone?” Mrs. Glory was having a hard time taking in the news. It was the first time she had heard Newt’s name mentioned in years. “Your brother Newt is on the phone?”

“Yes!” Mr. Glory screamed. He was so filled with rage that his face burned. He looked to the right, to the left. Anna thought he was looking for a piece of furniture small enough to smash to splinters. She stepped back out of the way.

“I think he’s being paroled, Mom,” Anna explained. “He wants to come stay with us for a while. He has to have an approved place.” She had gotten this from the letter, but her father wouldn’t know that.

“Just when we’re beginning to have some success,” Mr. Glory said through his teeth. “Just when people are beginning to accept us, to believe in us—you know what a woman in Albemarle told me? She said, ‘Your whole family is good—it’s in your faces and your voices.’ She said, ‘It does me good to know there’s one Christian family left in the world that—’” He broke off.

Anna said, “Dad, he’s waiting.”

Mr. Glory struck the nearest wall with his fist and looked up at the ceiling. Then, like a balloon losing air, he sank down onto a chair. “And now, just when it’s all beginning to happen for us, Newt gets a parole.”

“Dad, he’s waiting.”

Mr. Glory shook his head. “It’s the end of everything.”

Anna looked at her mother, her sister. No one moved.

Anna went back and picked up the phone. “Uncle Newt, it’s me again, Anna. Dad can’t come to the phone right now. You want me to have him call you back? … I will. Good-bye.”

“T
ELL ME EVERYTHING YOU
remember about Uncle Newt,” Anna said.

“I don’t remember anything.”

“Angel, you do. Look at me. You always go around pretending you don’t know what’s going on, and you do! You know every single thing that happens in this family.”

After the telephone call Mr. Glory had sent everyone out of the living room so he could think. Now Angel and Anna were in their bedroom with the door shut. They could hear their father pacing back and forth on the worn rug, pausing as he reached the wall and turned. He was puffing so hard on a cigarette that they could smell smoke in their bedroom.

“Well, what
can
you remember?”

“Nothing.”

“Leave your hair alone for five seconds. Now look at me and tell me what you remember.”

“There’s really nothing to tell. Uncle Newt wasn’t tall and he wasn’t short. He wasn’t good-looking and he wasn’t ugly. His hair wasn’t dark and it wasn’t light.”

She waved her comb from side to side as she spoke, pointing to opposite walls. “He was the kind of man—well, like if he had kids, his kids would never run around wondering, ‘Can I be better than Pa?’ You know, like we used to wonder if we could turn out better than Mom? Because there’s nothing to be better
than
!”

Anna drew in her breath. She felt as if she herself had just been described. She’s not tall and she’s not short, and she’s not pretty and she’s not ugly, and no one will ever run around wondering, “Can I be better than Anna?” because everybody can.

“That’s a terrible way to describe somebody,” she said, stung.

“This is why I never want to tell you anything. You jump on everything I say.”

“Well, it’s sad to describe people in negatives. He’s not this. He’s not that.”

“What else are you going to do when there’s nothing positive?”

Anna’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know.”

Angel watched Anna. “Oh, all right, I just thought of something. When Uncle Newt robbed the bank—Anna, you have to remember that.”

“I don’t.”

“Everyone was so ashamed. Mom wouldn’t show her face in the Piggly Wiggly. She went clear to Anderson to buy groceries where nobody knew her.”

Anna shook her head. “I can just barely remember it.”

“Well, when Uncle Newt robbed the bank—it was First Federal—he took this fellow with him who had real bowed legs—
real
bowed—you could have thrown a basketball through his knees. And the bank got the whole robbery on video tape.”

“So?”

“So Uncle Newt and this man, they had on ski masks so nobody would recognize them, but when they walked out of the bank—still on camera—there were these legs!” Angel made a wide gesture in the air with her comb.

“What about it?”

“Anna, nobody in the bank could have described Uncle Newt. There was nothing to describe. If he hadn’t taken the bowlegged man along—well, they would never have gotten caught. If he’d taken somebody else—well, they could have turned out to be …” She paused. “Name me some famous bank robbers.”

“Bonnie and Clyde.”

“They could have turned out to be Bonnie and Clyde.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I listened, and I remember there was a picture in the afternoon newspaper. ‘Have You Seen These Men?’ And there were Uncle Newt and this other man in their ski masks. And everybody who saw the picture looked at the bowed legs and said right away, ‘Why, that’s old So-and-so.’ I don’t remember his real name. Yes, I do. Legs Somebody. And they went over and arrested Legs and he still had his ski mask in his pocket.”