Bethie was supposed to be Hannah’s polyester twin. So after the slanteye crisis, Mother taught them that neither was white.
Neither was Filipino. They were both simply children of the King.
But sometimes, even the King’s kids keep to their own. Whites to their sad organ solos. Blacks to their boom-kick. And her
family, a whole different type, kept to a capella hymns sung in lawn chairs by a mosquito-filled marsh.
The preaching started. There was no lecture and no peaceful devotional. There was only a
hallelujah
shout, as the preacher paced around the stage yelling out a message with jumpy rhythms. Hannah closed her eyes so she could
listen without the distraction of his pacing, or the women down front waving their hands in ecstasy. He was speaking of redemption
and forgiveness. Of a holy table, where mercy is served. Hannah smiled. Her father would have enjoyed this sermon.
People started to stand. Some raised their hands and swayed back and forth in time with the preacher’s pacing across the stage.
The woman in front of Hannah started a high-pitched mumble, her volume gradually building. The preacher ignored her, even
as others began to join the woman in their own private conversations.
Something about her shoulders, even through that lemon-yellow dress, seemed familiar. And as her head jerked back, and her
eyes rolled to heaven, Hannah realized it was Cora. Broken syllables spilled from her tongue. A mystery chant to heaven.
Hannah ran. Pushed her way out of the pew and through the front doors. And as the door closed behind her, she saw Bethie.
On her feet, hands waving in the air.
It wasn’t the words, or lack of words, that sent her running. Even the shrill pitch and trembling bodies seemed almost safe.
But the thing that didn’t, the thing that sent her running to that live oak, was the boldness. That someone would have a private
conversation with God in the middle of church. Claim access to his ear with mystery words invented for the two of them. It
seemed greedy somehow.
Later, Cora told her it was little tongues of fire being poured over them by the Holy Ghost. But no matter how many times Hannah returned to that church, no matter how much she envied Bethie the ecstasy, the mystery was never revealed to her.
When the sisters arrived home from church, they saw Mother had prepared a picnic. She carried a basket with ham salad sandwiches,
peaches, and little square brownies wrapped in foil. Father drove them to the beach, and they carried their lunch close to
the water. He wore swimming trunks and a T-shirt, not being bound by the same rules of modesty. After they ate he waded in
deep, while the girls dipped their toes in the water. Hannah was jealous of how he looked like everyone else, swimming and
floating in cool water on a ninety-degree day. While she sat dying in polyester.
“Ours is a different pleasure, daughter,” Mother said softly, guessing Hannah’s thoughts. “And it will be your time to enjoy
it soon, too. You are sixteen. Only two years from graduating. Not long, and you’ll be a woman.”
“You said I was a woman when I was thirteen.”
She shook her head and grabbed Hannah’s hands. “No. It’s becoming a wife, having a husband to care for and later a child.
Your
own
precious child. My grandchild.”
Mother glowed when she said it. Her face lit up like the sun that beat down on them. And her mouth paused to linger and enjoy
the sweetness of the words
my grandchild.
But it meant little to Hannah.
“Father said I’d meet my husband at college.”
“College,” Mother groaned, as she rolled her eyes. “Not a single other girl we know plans for such nonsense. It will fill
your head with discontentment. Bethie doesn’t want to go. You were raised the same as her. Why do you?”
Hannah remembered all the books she had received as presents from her father. And all of the knitting supplies he gave Bethie.
“You toured that college with us last spring. You said you liked it.”
“Not as much as I’d love to plan your wedding and help you organize your own household. Think of it, your
own
household. At eighteen you could have that. There are plenty of good young men at our church. Did you know John Hadley asked
to court you last spring? Your father said no, that you were too young. I didn’t agree, but it wasn’t my place to say. You
are older now; you could have more of a say in these matters. And of course, Father and I would take the money we would have
spent on college and help you get started in your new life. Think of all the lovely new furniture. A nice house of your own.
And Hannah,” she said, smiling triumphantly, “think of all the pretty new dishes.”
It was vanity. The only one that her parents turned a blind eye to. Even indulged. It began with the porcelain tea set she
and Bethie received when they were four. Tiny cups and saucers with pink rosebuds painted across them, the perfect size to
fit little doll hands. Bethie was pleased with them and played with them like any child. A fifteen-minute game of pretend
before moving on to something new. But not Hannah. She would spend whole days arranging those dishes on their little art table,
a pink pillowcase thrown over it for a tablecloth. Each year after that, her parents bought her a new set. They’d pack away
the old one, wrapping up pink rosebud saucers in layers of cloth. “We’ll save these for your own daughter one day,” Mother would say.
Then Hannah would open a new one. She would sit with delicate china cups in her hands and stare at the paintings on them.
Garlands of rainbow pansies. Little English cottages nestled by foamy waterfalls. Or beautiful little girls, with braids and
ribbons and curled eyelashes. She’d hold the dishes up, and the light would pour through and make the paintings glow. Make
their beauty shine down on her.
“Hannah”—Mother laughed softly, that day on the beach—“do you think I didn’t notice the way you held the cups to your lips
as you stared in the mirror? Children never hide things as well as they think.”
Bethie laughed. She looked at Hannah and signed the letter
T
. Hannah laughed, too. They shared a T-shirt secret that made Bethie feel more like her sister than the polyester ever had.
“You still wonder, don’t you?” Mother asked. “You wonder whether you are pretty, more than you think of goodness.”
“No. If there is any beauty here,” Hannah said, looking down upon herself, “it’s well hidden.”
“That’s the point. Or else you end up like Leah.”
Aunt Leah was the family scandal, with two divorces by the time she was thirty. Years ago, Hannah found a picture of Leah,
taken in the parking lot of a church after a family funeral. Hannah stared at the red face, the swollen eyes. “That’s Leah,”
Mother explained. “We barely knew our great-uncle. She cried like a baby that day, though. Always did like to make a scene.”
Hannah stared in awe at that woman in black pants, the kind that made a woman look so slim. And at her deep red turtleneck,
a perfect match to the shade of her lipstick.
All through her childhood, Hannah had stumbled into hushed conversations. “Looks just like Leah,” she’d hear relatives whisper,
when they thought Hannah couldn’t hear. “Their hair so blond it doesn’t look real.”
Sometimes at night, when Hannah couldn’t sleep, she would close her eyes and think of Leah and her red lips. Leah with her
black pants and slim curves. She pretended that picture of Leah answered her heart’s question. Of who she might be, what she
might look like, if she had only been born to the Presbyterian family across the street.
“Leah was always set on being pretty,” Mother continued. “And no matter how hard your grandmother tried to train her, to cultivate
her inner beauty, Leah was too selfish. Thinking only of what she wanted, and that was boys. Not a family. Or a good husband.
Just lots and lots of boys and good times. Did I ever tell you about when I first met your father?”
“You met him at church.”
“He wasn’t raised in the faith like me. But he started coming with his grandparents. After he joined the church, he could
have had his pick of any girl he wanted. And I prayed for him to make me his wife the way some people pray for money or fame.
But it wasn’t me that caught his eye. It was Leah. The man in him saw the way she unbuttoned her blouse just enough to make
her modesty questionable. He heard her giggle, her teasing ‘Hey there,’ every time he walked past her. He asked my father
if he could court her. And I’ve never cried like I did that night. It was so awful to have him there in our family home, eating
meals with us, taking walks with us, only so he could see
her.
And she did not appreciate him. Only I saw the way she made eyes at common, dangerous boys on the street. Only I saw the way she would pin her skirt,
above her knees
, and hang out by the bus stop waiting for the neighborhood boys. Did you know your father proposed to her? I overheard it
all. How lightly she took it. None of us knew it then, but she was already sneaking around seeing that pizza delivery boy.
‘I can’t,’ she said simply. He asked her why. All she said was, ‘I want something different.’ She left the room and I went
to him. He looked so tired sitting on the couch. I sat on the floor, almost kneeling before him. ‘She’s a fool,’ I whispered.
We were married six months later. The night he proposed, he told me about his plans for mission work after he finished his
doctorate in engineering. ‘It’s the reason your sister said no,’ he said cautiously. I laid my hand on his and promised him,
‘I’ll hold your hand while you build bridges through cannibal jungles.’
“It was
wanting
that was Leah’s undoing. No matter what the doctors said. They only wanted to discuss her childhood, every time I went there.
They didn’t mention all the chemicals that she had poisoned her body with over the years. They didn’t mention the bad choice
after bad choice that left her mind in so much pain. Once a doctor stopped me in the hall. ‘She doesn’t seem to want to get
better,’ he said. ‘We need to find a way. Perhaps if you talked to her.’ I didn’t. I’ve never admitted that to anyone until
now. But I didn’t ask her to get better, and I didn’t ask her to try. When I went to get her paperwork, after she did what
she did, the doctor was there, a clipboard in his hand. He told me he was sorry. That he had hoped for better. And I told
him the truth. Told him more than all his years in college could ever teach him. Some people only do what they want. Never
what they should. Never what you hope them to do. They spend their days crying
I want
and
I want
and
I want.
They spend their lives consuming and grasping and swallowing whole whatever is in their reach. Even if it’s boys. Even if
it’s other women’s husbands. Even if it’s…” Mother stopped and caught her breath. “Even if it’s death.”
Hannah turned toward the ocean to give Mother time to hide the pain that swept over her face. It had been fifteen years since
Leah’s suicide. Sometimes Hannah believed she remembered the day of the call. She didn’t; she was only one when it happened.
But she imagined the ringing of the phone. The way Mother answered, probably knowing what the news would be. How Mother nodded
as she listened, her face turning to stone like Bethie’s. What Hannah never imagined, what she’d never remember, was what
happened behind that stone. All the new fears that were born after the phone rang that day. All the new promises that Mother
whispered over her beautiful baby girl.
“The doctor didn’t understand,” Mother finally whispered. “Hannah, I
need
you to.”
“I do,” Hannah lied.
Mother sighed and squeezed her hand.
“Father,” Hannah whispered, as she watched him. He laughed as a giant wave crashed over him, and waved to his girls sitting
on the beach. “It will break his heart if I don’t go to college.”
“His heart is my job, not yours. Look at John Hadley when we return in a couple of months. Let him see you look at him. He’ll
know. Think about a family. About babies. Think of all the pretty dishes. And if that doesn’t help, remember Leah.”
Hannah nodded, and forced a smile for Mother. But her mind begged to know,
What was missing?
When Leah cried
I want
and
I want
and
I want.
She spent her life grasping blindly, for something. Was there a word for the missing thing? Did it ever have a name?
Hannah was seven years old the first time she called herself ugly. She was standing in her front yard on Easter morning. Up
and down the streets of her neighborhood she saw other little girls twirling bright floral skirts that poofed out at their
knees. Their hair was curled and piled with ribbons. Their feet were shiny with black patent. Lace socks, trimmed with ribbons
to match the ones in their hair, showed off how tiny their ankles were. Their little hands, some covered in lace-trimmed gloves,
clutched baskets filled with treats. They looked like storybook ballerinas, twirling and twirling in blurs of pink and lace.
Hannah couldn’t take her eyes off them. She caught her breath with excitement whenever a new Easter ballerina appeared.
Hannah was dressed the same on Easter as any other day. Even so, she ran to her room. Twirled around and around, her arms
held out, her fingers pointed, just like she saw the other little girls doing. But no matter how fast she twirled, her skirt
would not poof. Ribbons did not appear in her hair. And she knew she was not beautiful. As she stared at herself in the mirror,
she searched for another word. Too little to know the word
plain,
she settled for something else. That word was
ugly
.
Nine years later, and Hannah was still twirling. Only this time she was inside the Steampot Motel. One of her jobs was to
receive the coolers unloaded off the back of Cora’s truck, filled with the day’s fresh catch. She’d pick them up and take
them inside to rinse off the seafood and store it properly.
The boy from the oyster roast was usually the one who made the deliveries. They would talk as he unloaded. About how hot it
was, or whether he thought a thunderstorm was coming. She enjoyed his attention, even if it was just weather talk, as he handed
her an iced-down cooler. He was seventeen and he was not a
safe
boy. Sometimes he cussed. Sometimes she saw him drinking beer while sitting with Cora.