The Glass House People (10 page)

Grandad chuckled. "You've got it! It's a paradox, Beth. A built-in contradiction—what the ancient Greek philosophers called an antinomy."

She tossed the pad onto the bed. "So you mean there
is
no answer? But that's not fair! How can we ever know what's true or false?"

"The philosophers grappled with just that question and never figured it out, either." He cocked his eyebrow at her. "Maybe it doesn't matter."

She hoped she had inherited even an ounce of his style.

She leaned back in the blue chair. "I have a riddle for you, Grandad." It was one Ray had told her. Though Ray laughed them off as childish, he was secretly just as big a fan of light bulb jokes as Beth was.

Grandad set aside his pad and pen and leaned back on the pillows. "Okay, shoot."

"How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?"

"Go on, how many?"

"Only one." She grinned. "But the light bulb has got to
want
to change!"

He rolled his eyes.

"Listen, I've got another one! How many Californians does it take—"

She was cut off by pounding footsteps out in the hallway. The bedroom door burst open and Hannah raced into the room, her hair loose on her shoulders and her eyes wild.

"Mom!" Beth jumped up from her chair. "What's wrong?"

"I don't care! That's it—that's the end!" yelled Hannah. She ran to the window and pressed her palms flat against the glass.

"What is it, Hanny?" asked Grandad, pushing off his sheet and struggling to get out of bed.

Hannah stared at them over her shoulder. "We're out of here, that's what. I just can't stay another minute in this house. I won't! Not with Iris here. Not another second!" Her trembling voice rose. "Beth, go start packing—immediately!"

"Whoa, Hanny Lynn!" Grandad walked haltingly over to her. "Come on, of course you mustn't leave. Your mother and I are so happy you've come back and brought the children. We need you—please. Have you and Iris had another fight? Is that it? Is that it, Hanny?"

"Is that it?" she mimicked him with tight sarcasm. "Of course that's it! When has it ever been any different?" She balled her hands into fists and pounded them against the windowpanes.

"Mom!" Beth ran to her, sure the glass would shatter. "Watch out!"

Hannah whirled on her. "Just go start packing! If we don't hurry, we'll never get out alive. She'll see to that!"

Beth had seen her mother angry many times, but occasionally there was a quality to the fury that frightened her. This was one of those times. Hannah didn't seem quite herself. She beat the panes of glass, her face contorted.

"It was a mistake to come back here," she hissed suddenly. "This house is contaminated! It's
haunted!
"

Beth stepped back, her stomach churning with dread and something else that, strangely, might have been embarrassment. She headed for the door.

Grandad had his arms around Hannah, murmuring to her. She was shaking her head so wildly that her straight hair fanned out off her shoulders. At the door, Beth paused, afraid her mother might shove him away, afraid he would fall. But after a moment's fierce resistance, Hannah threw her arms around him, sobbing brokenly.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm so sorry!"

And as quickly as that, the storm was over. Beth knew there would be no need to pack now.

"Well, how about if you be Watson and I be Holmes," suggested Tom, tearing the husk off the ear of corn he held and tossing the ear into the large pot Grandmother had given them. "Already we have two versions of what happened from Mom and Aunt Iris."

"I'm older," said Beth. "I'll be Holmes." They sat on the back steps, glasses of cold lemonade standing beside them in dark, wet circles on the gray stone step. She kept her tone light. She didn't want to tell him about Hannah's outburst upstairs. It just made things seem even weirder. She could hear voices from inside the house now—high, low, quarrelsome—and tried to ignore them. The hedge around the yard grew wild, effectively shielding the stone house from the street, but through its insulating tangles Beth could make out the summer sound of lawn mowers.

Tom tossed another ear into the pot. "Anyway, I have an idea. How about we ask Grandmother and Grandad for their versions of what happened? You deal with Grandmother, and I'll tackle Grandad after his nap. Maybe they
did
notice something else."

"Like a stranger lurking on the landing that night?" Beth snorted. "Anyway, I've already tried to ask Grandad and he clams up like—like a clam."

"Maybe you're not going about it in the right way. You're too blunt. You've got to be sneaky. You know, get him talking about something else and then work the conversation around to Clifton Becker." He drained his lemonade.

"Got it all figured out, hmm?" Beth curled a husk around her hand. "I guess I could try again with Grandad. But
you
tackle Grandmother."

Tom scowled. "No way, Holmes. She thinks I'm a drug addict."

"Oh, she does not."

He grinned. "Come on, Beth. Remember my sensitive nature! My youth!"

She menaced him with the last ear of corn, then began shucking the husk onto the pile. He picked up the pot when she was done and carried it up the steps to the kitchen.

"I'll take Romps for a nice long walk, and you can get started," he offered.

Beth followed Tom inside, banging the screen door behind her. Old Mac never had been known for his generous spirit. On the other hand, why
not
interview Grandmother? It wasn't as if Beth had anything else planned. It wasn't as if life in Philadelphia were thrills-a-minute exciting. She had phoned Monica again after leaving Grandad and Hannah, but the answering machine answered, and a man's voice told her no one was home just then and she should leave a message. Weren't these people ever home? She'd cleared her throat and said that it was just Beth, the girl with the fudge bar, calling yet again, and would Monica
please
call her as soon as she came home, if she ever did come home? She decided this was the girl's last chance.

Grandmother was perched on her stool in the corner between the stove and the counter. Her white hair curled in wisps around her face from the summer heat. She had a pie pan full of sliced peaches on the counter at her side and was carefully cutting strips of pastry out of the dough on the floured board in front of her. She looked up when Beth and Tom entered, and she wiped her floury fingers on the faded apron she wore over her housedress.

"Thank you. Put the pot on the back burner, Tom. We'll have the corn for lunch."

"What are you making?" asked Tom.

"It's pretty obviously peach pie," said Beth. "And it looks yummy, Grandmother. But what are you doing to the crust?"

"It's a lattice-weave crust, my girl. It takes time to do, but I've got enough of that on my hands. And if a pie is worth making, it's worth making well. Like most things, I think." She bent back over her work.

Beth was uncomfortably aware that interviewing someone didn't happen naturally. How was she supposed to change the subject gracefully and start being sneaky to get the information they wanted? Would it be too horrible if she casually asked straight out: "So, who do you think killed Clifton Becker?" She didn't have the nerve. She glanced at Tom for help, but he just shrugged and moved toward the door.

"Well, I'm off," he announced. "Unless you'd like me to stay and help, Grandmother?"

The old woman did not even look up from her careful cutting. "The kitchen is no place for a boy. Why don't you take that dog with you? He's been lying out there under the tree all morning."

"Good idea, Tom," said Beth sarcastically as he bounded past her to get Romps's leash from the hook in the pantry.

"I don't hold with men in the kitchen," Grandmother said firmly to Beth as the screen door slammed. "Men have more than enough to occupy themselves with elsewhere. I'll set him to work later pruning the hedge."

Beth didn't bother to tell her that Tom was a better cook than their mother and that Ray made the best guacamole this side of Mexico. She herself had little patience with kitchen work, and little practice, preferring to cut glass rather than pastry dough.

She washed her hands at the sink. "Let me help, then."

Grandmother frowned. "Can you cook? Hanny was always a terror in the kitchen. We tried to teach her, Iris and I. But she had no natural gift—couldn't do any more than read a recipe book." Grandmother snorted. Then she peered at Beth. "There's more to good cooking than following a book. There's intuition—and instinct."

Beth nodded and reached for an apron on the hook by the refrigerator. She might as well look the part of the intuitive chef working by instinct. "I really do want to learn, Grandmother. Let me in on the family secrets."

"You can be in charge of rolling out the crusts," directed Grandmother, handing Beth the rolling pin. "Use just enough flour on the board to keep the dough from sticking. Too much flour makes a crust crumbly." She divided the dough into three equal balls. "We'll be making three pies."

Beth positioned herself at the cutting board and started pressing the soft dough of one ball awkwardly with the rolling pin.

Grandmother peered at her critically. "Don't just mash it around like that. You need to
roll
it out. Smoothly. Here, let me show you." She climbed off her stool and took the rolling pin from Beth's hands. "Like this"—and under her touch the floury mass became a smooth, thin circle ready to go into the pie pan. "See? Just like that."

"No problem," said Beth. She tried again and this time managed to spill half the flour from the board onto the floor. "Oh, sorry!" She rushed to the sink for a cloth.

Grandmother sighed. "Well, I guess you take after your mother. Hanny Lynn never learned to make a pie, either."

"Mom hasn't had much time for pies and cakes," Beth said, defending Hannah. "But she makes great salads."

"California food," sniffed Grandmother, perching on her stool again. "If she weren't out at work all the time, she could learn to cook. She should be at home where she can bring up her children properly. She needs to be married—and stay married. None of this changing your mind all the time, dating different men, running around like chickens without heads."

Beth scraped a wad of dough off the rolling pin and considered hurling it at her grandmother. "Mom
was
married, you know," she said, keeping her voice even. "Even if you never met him. She was
happily
married! It wasn't her fault my father was killed in an accident."

Grandmother stirred sugar into her peaches. "If she drove him to drink, it was. Just like she's driving poor Iris to drink now. Hanny has had her hand in more than one accident, I'm afraid."

Beth applied herself to her piecrusts and did not say anything for a long moment. Grandmother plunged her wooden spoon into the bowl of peaches and gave them a good stir. Then, as clearly as if he were really there, Beth heard Tom's voice in her head: "Go for it, Holmes!"

So Beth cleared her throat. "Umm, Grandmother?"

"Yes?" The old woman didn't look up from her busy hands as they peeled another peach for slicing.

"About Mom? How is she driving Aunt Iris to drink?"

"Never you mind. I'm sorry I said anything."

"No, really. I know Mom and Iris don't get along—"

"I expect your mother has been filling your head with all sorts of nasty nonsense about poor Iris, hasn't she?"

"No!"

"Hmmph. Well, they were never close, I'll say that much. Your mother was always jealous of poor Iris. Iris was such a frail girl, you know. We had to take special care of her. Make sure she enjoyed life. Her paintings were lovely—she had real talent! You may not have known your aunt was an artist, but she even won a state competition once and could have gone on to art school. But Hanny Lynn put a stop to that as well."

"But how?"

Grandmother's expression grew tight, and she closed her eyes for a moment as if in pain. "Hanny Lynn made poor Iris's life so miserable, she couldn't paint anymore! That's when she stopped eating. It's awful to watch someone you love wasting away. And then to see Hanny Lynn come back home full of beans! No wonder Iris has taken to drinking! Let me tell you, a mother's burden is a heavy one."

Beth took the bowl of peaches Grandmother handed her and carefully spooned equal amounts of fruit into the piecrust shells. She took a deep breath. "Why
did
Mom leave home, Grandmother?"

Grandmother sighed and wiped her palms on her apron. "I'm not surprised she's never told you. It's good to know she has some sense of shame. Nothing to be proud of, leaving like that. But in a way, things were easier for us all here with her gone. It wasn't good having her here—not after what she did." Grandmother bit her lip and brushed a wispy white curl back off her forehead. The tight expression was back. For a moment Beth was afraid the old woman was going to start crying.

"But what
did
she do?" asked Beth.

Grandmother shook her head. "It's all water under the bridge. Your Grandad wouldn't like me to be talking this way."

Beth wracked her brain for the right question that would set Grandmother off again. Maybe something casually blunt would do the trick after all.

So she spoke up innocently. "Are you talking about that lodger? The one who fell down the stairs?"

Grandmother climbed off her stool and walked to Beth's side. Wordlessly, she took a filled pie pan from Beth's hands and set it on the counter by the stove. "Watch carefully now," she said. "This is how you weave the lattice."

Beth watched the plump fingers neatly slice dough into ribbons. Her question hung in the air, unanswered. Grandmother wove the last strip of dough into place on the first piecrust. "Can you do that?" she asked. "Here, try it on this next pie."

Beth reached for a strip of dough.

Grandmother sighed and walked back to her stool, sitting down heavily. "Yes," she said as if to herself. "Maybe you should be told that much, you being her daughter." She looked up at Beth, and her eyes were full of pain. "Yes, Hanny Lynn left because Clifton fell down the stairs. There's no question about that."