Ширли Мерфи: The Grass Tower

Bethany had lived in this village all her life, first with Mama and Papa, after they adopted her as a baby, and then with Aunt Bett and Uncle Jimmie and their children.

She had been with Aunt Bett and Uncle Jimmie for three years now. Before that she had spent occasional weekends with them when her parents were in San Francisco, though when she was small she had never looked forward to that. Aunt Bett had watched her so, and hadn’t liked her going alone on the dunes, didn’t like her playing alone. And Aunt Selma, who was often at Bett’s for coffee, had shown her disdain too clearly.

“Why they adopted such a homely child is beyond me. Couldn’t they have picked a pretty one? That red hair on another child would be striking, but with Bethany’s bony face it only adds insult to injury.”

“Why did they adopt you?” Jack said once. “Did they know a secret about you?” He was a year older, and often he was cruel. “Did they know about you even when they first got you? How did they, when you were only a bawling baby?”

“What do you mean?” Bethany flared.

“You know, Miss Nosy, your special talent, don’t put on with me. How else could you have told about the cat? Not from seeing!” He had brought his face close to hers, menacing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But she had known.

Jack and two of his friends had hung a cat by its neck from the rafter of an abandoned barn, a poor frightened animal that fought and clawed at them, and Bethany had seen it, seen it in her mind when she still saw pictures. She had run to Aunt Bett, and Aunt Bett, dashing out, had not thought to ask how Bethany, alone in the bedroom with a book, had known.

But Jack had asked later, and when Bethany tried to ignore him he had hit her. “However you knew, you won’t do that again, will you?”

The next time she saw something to do with Jack in the odd way she had of seeing, she hadn’t gone to Aunt Bett, she had gone to Mama. Jack and his friends had been in the barn again, they called it their club. They had taken off their clothes. She saw them naked, and she saw what they did then. She told her mother, hot with shame.

She would always remember that day. It was raining outside. Her mother had listened to her quietly, then had sat Bethany down in her favorite corner of the couch while she laid a fire and lit it against the cold and cheerlessness. She had made hot cocoa and brought it to have with cookies. Then she had taken Bethany in her lap, warm and safe, and stroked her hair, and Bethany had felt comforted. At last Mama had said quietly, “You are going to see all kinds of ugliness in your life, Bethany. You’re seeing things now that most children are just not ready to see.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“You’re going to have to learn to make a special place in your mind for things like this. A place where you can put the ugly things away. Take them out and look at them, but put them away when you are done.

“Sometimes, too, you must learn what is natural to small boys. You above all others, I think, will have to learn very quickly to take people for what they are, not what you want them to be.” She hugged Bethany, and they sat close together for a long time, watching the fire.

After her parents were killed, there was no one else she could talk to, no one who would understand when she was upset by the things that came to her. Aunt Bett would be shocked and uneasy at hearing such things. Bethany knew this without question. Sometimes she wished she could talk to Justin, but of course Justin was abroad helping her father with research. Mama and Justin had been very close when they were growing up, two cousins both much younger than their older sisters.

Bethany and Aunt Bett had always been at odds, even when Bethany was small, and after Mama and Papa died, their sudden forced proximity seemed to magnify the friction, though Aunt Bett did everything she knew how to ease the pain of the death. But Aunt Bett had never understood Bethany’s need to be alone. She had fussed at Mama about it. “How you can let her roam the dunes all by herself—except for that dog— is beyond me, Marjory. Most children want to be with other children.” And Bethany, sitting quietly in a corner while Aunt Bett talked in front of her, caught the dark, strange unease of Aunt Bett’s feelings so sharply that she stared up in dismay, not understanding the fear that stood so abruptly in the room for a moment.

But Mama paid no attention to Aunt Bett, and Bethany continued to roam the dunes, with the Labrador as her eager, tongue-lolling companion, and later a pony, too. She loved the pale, empty dunes, the little bays and salt marshes; she would not share this world with other children who were noisy and destructive of birds’ eggs and small animals, and whose thoughts forced themselves on her too often. Later when she was governed solely by Aunt Bett, she was encouraged to go to children’s parties and do things in groups, but she was as stubborn as Aunt Bett, and when she was forced to go, she sneaked off from the others and lied about it later.

She turned now to Colin as they hurried home, wondering why he was so interested in Aunt Selma’s church. They had left the shops and could smell suppers cooking; a few men, reeking of fish, were getting off the bus that came down from the harbor. They cut through the yards to their own white board house and banged open the back screen; Colin dropped his jacket on the service porch and they scuffed into the kitchen. Marylou, an apron tight around her slim waist, stood over the stove frying round steak, her face flushed from the heat. She turned, her blond hair swinging, and sighed. “How come you two are always late when it’s your turn to help with dinner? Don’t eat before dinner, Colin,” she added automatically as Colin reached for the bread. Bethany sat down at the table and began to peel potatoes.

“How come you’re so late?” Marylou said, turning the steak.

“Looking in the mercantile,” Colin answered with his mouth full, “Watching Aunt Selma measure the walls.”

“You’ll ruin your skin. Can’t you ever remember that diet? Mama paid enough for it with the doctor bill and all. Why was she measuring the walls?”

“Lay off, will you,” Colin grumbled.

“Black cloth, to cover the paint,” Bethany said.

Aunt Bett pushed the back door open, edged her packages and her square hips through, and closed it with her elbow; she was wearing her church-ladies-meeting hat, the one with the flowers; she set her cake plate on the counter. Colin lifted the lid; there was half a carrot cake left, the three of them eyed it hungrily. “It’s for dinner,” Aunt Bett said, and pushed it to the back. “It’s report card day.”

Colin buttered another piece of bread. Bethany took her card from her pocket and laid it on the table. Aunt Bett’s gaze never left Colin. “Did you get your report card?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so? Where is it?”

Colin began to spread jelly, not looking at her.

“I said get it, Colin!”

He fidgeted, concentrating on the jelly. It slicked over the butter and soaked into the edges of the bread.

She picked up his books and began to riffle through them.

Marylou laid her own card beside Bethany’s and glared at Colin. “I don’t see why you have to be so obstinate. Did you flunk something?”

“You can’t flunk, it’s only quarter grades.”

“I told you, Colin,” Aunt Bett said, “one C or D, and it’s no more allowance until summer, and no movies for a month.”

She found the card in his English book and snatched it out impatiently. But as she read it, her expression changed entirely. Aunt Bett had salt and pepper hair done in careful waves, and when something unsettling or unexpected happened she bit the corner of her mouth, making a funny little twist on one side. She stared at Colin. “But son, this is wonderful! A’s, all A’s and B’s! Why didn’t you show it to me? Show Marylou! Why wouldn’t you show me a card like this after all the trouble we’ve had over it? If I’d made this kind of grades when I was young, I’d have whipped them right out and—”