The Glass House People (7 page)

She pushed the dream away and tried to listen to what Hannah was saying now.

"I know this is coming out all garbled, but if you two would just sit quietly and let me talk, I could explain what happened—what I think happened. And then the subject is closed. Absolutely and forever. It's nothing to do with you two. Okay?"

They nodded. Hannah twined her fingers together. "Well, then. I fell in love with Clifton. I was only seventeen, and he was engaged to Iris. But it wasn't long before I learned he loved me as much as I loved him! And then two things happened: Iris found out he loved me instead of her, and Clifton vowed he would marry Iris as he had promised in the first place."

Hannah drew a deep breath and continued, her glance moving around the room, never once resting on Beth or Tom. "I've never been more upset in my life. Maybe you can imagine.... Anyway, it was a summer night—in August, a hot, humid night just like this one—and there was a horrid scene. My parents were furious at me and Clifton for, as Mama put it, 'carrying on behind Iris's back.' Iris was insane with jealousy. She said he had betrayed her. But he was so gallant—he insisted he would stick by his promise. Iris screamed she was going to kill me. Then she screamed she was going to kill
him.
"

Hannah paused, and her eyes came to rest, at last, on Beth and Tom. "Clifton was angry, then, too. My parents sent him away that night—told him he couldn't stay. He got his things packed and was standing right out in the hall. As I said, it was late at night. I felt I'd die if he left. I ran out into the hall after him, actually followed him down the stairs onto the landing. And then there was Iris, like a madwoman, rushing down at us, screaming. And Mama and Daddy were there, too. God, they were angry. Daddy was yelling for Iris to be sensible, to calm down, and Mama was screaming at me to get back to my bedroom and that I'd been the cause of all the trouble in the first place." Hannah's shoulders sagged.

"Oh, Beth, Tom—I can still see us all so clearly in my mind at that moment. Five people crowding onto that tiny landing. There I was—grabbing at Clifton to hold him back—and there was Iris—trying to shove him along even faster than he was already going, shouting how she was going to kill us both if we ever looked at each other again. And there was Mama—reaching out to pull me back upstairs—and there was Daddy—trying to get Iris to let go of Clifton. All those hands reaching out..."

Tears were falling fast now, dropping from Hannah's wide eyes onto her knees. Beth and Tom sat silent, tense. Suddenly Hannah stood up and flung open the door into the hall. She left the room and, wordlessly, they followed. She slowly descended the short flight of stairs to the landing. She rested her hand on the fragile knickknack stand as if to steady herself and pointed down the long flight of stairs. "There," she whispered, her voice trembling. "He fell down there and cracked his head on the radiator. He died instantly."

Beth stared down the stairs, imagining the accident, then flicked a glance down over the banister into the living room to see if anyone was listening. The room was empty. She lifted her heavy hair off her neck.

"I'm sorry, Mom. That is
so
awful."

Hannah sank down to sit on the top step. Her voice was so low they had to crouch to hear. "I had to leave, you see. Everything was so confused. When I tried to remember exactly what happened, it seemed to me that Mama had already pulled me back—that Iris's hands were on him when he fell. I've always felt it would be like her to have pushed him and then blame me for it. But now—I just don't know. We were all there. All our hands were close to him—too close."

She stood up and dusted off her shorts, even attempted a smile. "But there's no proof of anything. That's it. That's the story."

Beth escaped to the basement in the morning and spent most of the day down there. It was dim and cool and private. She had permission from Grandmother to set up a space for her glasswork in the corner near Grandad's workbench. The bench was as neat and tidy as everything else in the house, with screws and bolts and nails all labeled in neatly arranged glass jars. The surface of the workbench was so smooth and polished that Beth knew Grandad hadn't worked at it for a long time.

She had brought her equipment from home and unpacked it now: butcher paper for tracing patterns, glass cutter for shaping the glass, grinder and protective goggles, coils of lead and zinc, soldering iron, copper foil, etching solution and tools. After arranging her work space, she moved to the corner where she had found the stack of canvases. The first one she pulled out was a portrait of Grandmother as a much younger woman. She was thinner, with soft brown chin-length hair and only a touch of gray. Her eyes were gentle. There was no signature, but Beth thought she knew who must have painted this. The second canvas was a still life—and Beth had to smile. It was the morning feast from the dining-room table, almost exactly as Beth had seen it that first morning and envisioned as a stained-glass window. There was the plate of fried potatoes, the platter of scrapple and eggs, the pitcher of orange juice, the jug of milk—all painted with an attention to detail that seemed lighthearted, as if the artist were amused, too, by the overabundance. The other paintings were varied: some were portraits, some were still-life compositions of fruits in baskets or flowers from the garden. Beth stared a long time at one of her mother. Hannah's brown hair was long and straight, parted in the middle. She wore a leather thong around her forehead and tied in a knot at the side. Her eyes were mischievous, the eyelids bright with blue eye shadow, her smile smirky. Beth could almost hear her begging the artist to hurry up and get on with it. There was a full-body portrait of a much younger Grandad wearing a work shirt and shorts, crouching over a cookstove. The blur of green around him suggested a forest.

Beth flipped through all the canvases, stopping now and then to peer at one more closely in the dim light. The last one made her gasp with delight, and she pulled it out and carried it over to the high window. It was a painting in oils, in bright and glorious colors that still looked wet even after so many years. Beth had to smile as she looked at it—there was such a happy feel to it—not so much in the subject matter of the picture, which was a group of islands in a stormy sea, all minutely detailed—but in the atmosphere. The painting told a story of delight in every brush stroke.

As she studied the painting, Beth imagined how fantastic it would look in glass. She knew she would never be able to work in all the details of the islands, but perhaps if she etched some of them she might at least convey the mood of joy and mystery. There were castles and princesses and all kinds of astonishing animals right out of a legend—lions with two heads, bears with the faces of dragons. Up in the sky were stars and planets and little rockets. Colorful flags flew from the turrets of the castles, and on the largest flag was a single, mysterious word: "Notfilc."

Beth knew who the artist had to be, though all the canvases she'd seen were unsigned. She checked this painting for the signature anyway, and this time found it down in the far left corner—a little blue flower floating on the crest of a wave in the stormy sea. An iris.

Who ever would have believed that Aunt Iris could paint such a joyful picture? Beth realized suddenly that
this,
not the sign for her shop with Ray, was the project she needed for the summer. She wanted, no, she
needed,
to see this painting rendered in stained glass. She wondered if she should ask Aunt Iris's permission before beginning her work to make the window, but something told her Aunt Iris would say no, and Beth knew she couldn't bear that. Beth had a feeling about this project that she wouldn't, if someone had asked her, have been able to express in words at all, but it felt to her as if suddenly, in all the gloom of this house, a little light had been switched on.

Beth was going up to bed that night with her arms full of clean, folded laundry. When she reached the little landing, she couldn't help but stop and turn to stare down at the iron radiator on which Clifton Becker had cracked his head and died. She often found herself stopping there since hearing Hannah's story, as if compelled by some outside force to imagine the grisly scene. She held her awkward bundle of laundry tightly now as she imagined him falling backward—imagined him fighting to catch his balance after someone's hands—surely Aunt Iris's hands—shoved so angrily. Had he known she meant to kill him? Beth clutched the pile of laundry. Surely it
had
been Aunt Iris.

The pile of clothes sagged to the left, and Beth turned swiftly to prevent it from toppling. A pair of tightly rolled socks tumbled down the stairs, coming to rest under the radiator. She groaned.

"Never mind, Elisabeth. I'll bring them up for you." Aunt Iris stood at the bottom of the stairs, peering up at Beth. She carried a tall glass of beer in one hand, and she held it carefully aloft as she crouched to retrieve Beth's socks.

"Oh, thanks, Aunt Iris."

Aunt Iris struggled to her feet with the socks in her hand. She set her beer on the windowsill for a moment while she unrolled them and peered at them closely—white running socks with a band of pink around the ankle. "Sweet," she said, picking up the beer again. "Very little-girly."

Beth turned and headed up the short flight from the landing to the upstairs hall. She kicked open her bedroom door and allowed the tall pile of laundry to fall onto the bed. Then she went back out into the hall to collect her socks from Aunt Iris. Aunt Iris was still making her way up the stairs. She gripped the banister with one white-knuckled hand, the other hand holding the glass of beer. Beth's socks she carried draped carefully over her shoulder.

"Here, let me take them," said Beth, reaching for the socks as her aunt stepped into the hallway.

Aunt Iris staggered past her. "Little-girly socks! I used to have some with lace around the ankles, I remember. I was about seven years old then and cute as a button. Everyone would tell you. I had long red curls like yours, only much nicer because I didn't let them hang in my face like that. I wore ribbons."

Beth glanced down the dark hall and bit her lip. Everyone else had gone to bed. Her aunt's voice was rising—the effect of the beer?—and Beth hoped she'd wake someone up. Despite Beth's discovery of the joyful canvases, she didn't like being alone with Aunt Iris. Far from the person who had filled a canvas with a magical world, Aunt Iris seemed now a person who filled the whole house with an invisible fungus. Carefully, Beth moved away from the stairs. No sense in letting history repeat itself.

"Thanks for getting the socks," she murmured, reaching out to take them off her aunt's bony shoulder.

But Aunt Iris flinched away. "Wait a minute. Come with me," she said hoarsely and lurched toward her bedroom. Beth followed reluctantly.

Aunt Iris set her glass carefully on the dresser, then lowered her body onto the bed.

"So, you think I'm ugly, do you?" She grabbed the socks off her shoulder and waved them in front of Beth "Ugly because I can't wear little-girly things like this without drawing attention to my big, crippled feet? Well, let me show you something, pretty Elisabeth."

"I don't think you're ugly!" cried Beth, alarmed. "I never said anything! I just want my socks."

"Your socks!" And she eased herself off the bed and crossed to her neat dresser, yanking open the top drawer. She withdrew a pair of thick beige stockings and dangled them at Beth. "See these? Support hose, that's what they are. Ugliest things on the face of the earth. But they help the circulation. And they don't clash with my shoes."

Beth couldn't help glancing down at her aunt's feet, heavily encased in sturdy black shoes that laced to the ankles. The left one had a thick platform attached to it.

Aunt Iris dropped the support stockings back into the drawer and rummaged in another drawer. She withdrew a thin folder. "I want you to see this, Elisabeth. You think you're so pretty! I just want you to see this."

"But I don't, Aunt Iris! I don't think I'm pretty at all! I hate that my hair is so red and bushy, and I always get zits, and I'm flat-chested—"

"But you have perfect feet," interrupted Aunt Iris. "Like your mother. And you probably think you're entitled to have whatever makes you happy, just like your mother does. Do you take whatever you want, too? Even if it doesn't belong to you?"

Beth backed toward the door, goose bumps rising on her arms despite the heat and humidity of the summer night. "I don't know what you're talking about, Aunt Iris. You can keep the socks if you want them so much."

"I want you to see this. See who this crippled old skeleton once was!" She flipped the folder open in front of Beth's nose. And Beth felt her eyes widen.

A lovely red-haired young woman in her late twenties with long curls pulled back from the temples to cascade over her shoulders stared out from a studio photograph. Two realizations struck Beth at the same time: This was a picture of Aunt Iris, and this was also very much how she, Beth, would look in another ten years or so. And with those realizations came an immediate sense of horror—horror that the pretty woman in the picture had become the dreadful woman in front of her now—and delight—delight that she herself might indeed grow out of the pimples and even the flat chest.

"It's a beautiful photo," she said at last, very softly. "I like the way you wore your hair."

Aunt Iris snapped the folder shut. "I just wanted to show you what she ruined, that mother of yours."

"What do you mean?" Beth's back was against the door now, but she felt compelled to hear what came next. It would be so easy just to open the door and run—she could outrun Aunt Iris, no sweat.

"I mean this." Aunt Iris's beery breath hit Beth's face. "That was my engagement photograph. I had just about everything a girl could want. I had good looks, good health, and a wonderful man in love with me." She paused and drew a long, choked breath. "But there was more. I had more. I had a twisted foot and a shriveled leg—and he loved me anyway." Her voice grew darkly bitter.